nyuuzyou/wikis huggingface dataset:
Bat Ye'or

Batshit Ye'or is the pseudonym of Gisèle Littman (née Orebi) , an Egyptian-born British citizen and Swiss resident. She is a major figure and "ideological leader" of the Islamophobic counter-jihad movement and author of several virulently anti-Muslim books.
She is most notorious for coining the conspiracy theory called "Eurabia," which notably served as the main ideological inspiration for the Islamophobic mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik.Bat Ye’or: Theorist of the ‘counterjihad’ movement by Bob Pitt (September 3, 2013) Islamophobia WatchInternational ‘Counter-Jihadist’ map: Switzerland Hope Not Hate (archived from July 5, 2014). The conspiracist sense of the word Eurabia was first adopted by Ye'or in 2002, but the term had been used in a non-conspiracist sense by others as early as 1975 in the journal Eurabia, which was published by the European Coordinating Committee of Friendship Societies with the Arab World."Bat Ye'or and Eurabia" by Sindre Bangstad (2019) In: Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy, edited by Mark Sedgwick. Oxford University Press. . Pages 170-183. The conspiracist sense of the term Eurabia was popularized by journalist in her 2004 book The Force of Reason, wrote about Ye'or.The Force of Reason by Oriana Fallaci (2004) Rizzoli. .
Ye'or's sympathizers (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bruce Bawer, Niall Ferguson, Ishad Manji, Melanie Phillips, and ) have referred to her as a historian, but among professional historians, her writings are not well-regarded. Ye'or's academic standing is complicated by her having published books with a legitimate academic publisher, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude by Bat Ye'or (1996) Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. .Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Ye'or (2003) Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. .The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam by Bat Ye'or (2008) Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. .Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye'or (2005) Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. .Europe, Globalization, and the Coming of the Universal Caliphate by Bat Ye'or (2011) Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. . and by counter-jihadists to sometimes claim that she has academic credentials, though she has none.'The Protocols of the Elders of Brussels' by Adi Schwartz (Jun. 20, 2006) Haaretz.
==References==
Category:Conspiracy theorists
Category:Jews
Category:Living people
Category:Racists
Bath salts

Assuming we're not talking about the stuff you put in the bath to smell nice and/or ease sore muscles, bath salts is a euphemistic term for a variety of manufactured "legal highs" and some illegal drugs.
The phrase "bath salts" has been used by various manufacturers and retailers to sell these products over the counter without drawing too much attention to the fact that they are in fact peddling narcotics.
==Mode of action==
Bath salts typically contain a cocktail of drugs. For example, synthetic marijuana and asthma medication, with methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) and the synthetic compounds known as cathinones as their primary ingredients. The synthetic cathinones are derived from the khat plant.
The cathinones mephedrone and methylone act like ecstasy, making nerve cells release more dopamine. The other major ingredient, methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), is like cocaine and blocks the reuptake of dopamine and norepinephrine. By itself, MDPV is about 10 times more potent than cocaine.
==Scientific studies and media reaction==
Studies on rats have suggested MDPV may be more addictive than meth. MDPV, one of the active ingredients in bath salts, was banned by the DEA in 2011. Long-term effects appear to be damage to the brain's connectivity, which may explain some of the stranger stories associated with use. Despite its association on the news with cannibalism, the scientific consensus is that despite the drug's extreme addictiveness and potential for brain damage, it does not turn people into zombies. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/no-bath-salts-wont-turn-you-into-cannibal-180953418/?no-ist
== External links ==
*New research is stressing potential health dangers of use
==References==
Category:Chemistry
Category:Drugs
Category:Moral panics
Beall's List

Beall's List of Predatory Open Access Publishers, shortened to Beall's List, was an annual publication listing publishers who are "potential, possible, or probable" agents of predatory open-access publishing, an exploitative business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not). Written by from the University of Colorado in Denver, the list sets criteria for categorizing predatory publications and lists publishers and independent journals that meet those criteria.On Predatory Publishers: a Q&A With Jeffrey Beall by Carl Elliott (June 5, 2012) The Chronicle of Higher Education. Newer scholars from developing countries are said to be especially at risk of becoming the victim of these practices.
On January 15, 2017, the list was brought down due to harassment from some predatory publishers who were listed and pressure from his employer, the University of Colorado Denver."We Now Know Why Jeffrey Beall Removed List of (Allegedly) Predatory Publishers", Debunking Denialism. Fortunately, the internet has it archived.Beall’s List: Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers (archive.org page of Beall's List from January 11, 2017)Beall’s List: Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers (archive.is page of Beall's List from January 16, 2017) Go nuts!
==Problems with Beall==
Beall published an article arguing against the whole of open access publishing and not just predatory open access, claiming it to be an "anti-corporatist" [sic], "collectivist", "cooperative" movement which wishes to "replace a free market with an artificial and highly regulated one". He says as if this is a bad thing. He also plays up the connections to George Soros, describing him as "known for his extreme left-wing views and the financing of their enactment as laws"."The Open-Access Movement is Not Really about Open Access", tripleC. Oh, and he published this nonsense in an open access journal!
There is also that time Beall described and two Latin American scholarly digital libraries, as "favelas", the Brazilian-Portuguese derogatory term for slums."Is SciELO a Publication Favela?", Scholarly Open Access. Yeah, not racist/classist at all!
==See also==
*Pseudojournal
==External links==
*
*Beall's List as of 2014
*An archived copy of Beall's List from 2017
*A mirrored site that's still maintained
==References==
Category:Pseudojournals
Category:Publishers
Bedford Level experiment

The Bedford Level experiment was a series of attempts, beginning in the late 19th century, to deny the curvature of the Earth's surface. First conducted by Flat-Earther Samuel Birley Rowbotham, observations along a long straight stretch of drainage canal in the English county of Norfolk seemed to confirm that the Earth is flat.
The basic idea was to use a surveyor's telescope to observe marks at a uniform height above the water, spaced three miles apart.Scientific American, Rosetta Stones: "Wallace’s Woeful Wager: How a Founder of Modern Biology Got Suckered by Flat-Earthers" If the earth is curved, the marks will not line up. Mariners had been correcting their lunar sights for the of light near the horizon since the eighteenth century, but the flat-earth proponents failed to account for it, and claimed the observed existing misalignment showed curvature (on still water) but much less than the crazy Round-Earth fanatics had predicted.
Years later, Rowbotham's results were taken up by one of his supporters, one John Hampden, who wagered a bet that he would prove the earth is flat. Alfred Russel Wallace took him up on this, and by accounting for optic refraction, he repeated the experiment and showed the Earth to be curved. Wallace was judged the winner by the editor of The Field (a gamblers' magazine), but Hampden claimed Wallace had cheated. Death threats, libel cases,The Form of the Earth— A Shock of Opinions New York Times, August, 1871 and Hampden's incarceration ensued.
==Further reading==
*Rob Hernlund - Flat Earth Confusion: Rowbotham Missed the Boat (2023) ASIN: B0BTKHP3MW
==See also==
*Zetetic
==External links==
*
==References==
Category:Science-related stubs
Category:Denialism
Bee

*Apitherapy, a type of alternative medicine using bee venom
*The Babylon Bee, an unfunny conservative "satire" site
*Samantha Bee, comedian
*The Bee, one of the suras in the Qur'an
*Bumblebee argument, a fallacious anti-intellectual creationist argument
*Colony collapse disorder, a problem faced by beehives
*Mike Huckabee, who loves the aforementioned argument
*Raw honey, the product
Beforeplay.org

Beforeplay.org is a publicly funded website and billboard campaign in Colorado, United States aiming to reduce unintended pregnancy.
Their ads show "before play" as separate words, with "play" referring to sex, but it can also be read as a play on the word "foreplay."
==Purpose==
Ripped from their website:
The campaign's goal is to produce results where abstinence-only sex education has failed, as well as to reduce abortions and STD cases.
==Methodology==
The campaign uses cutting-edge, ultra-innovative concepts like facts, science, and reality, as well as some rather sexy and suggestive but not pornographic images, to convey their message.
==Impact==
Combined with a program to provide 30,000 women with free birth control from an anonymously-donated fund, the teen birth rate in Colorado dropped 40% over a four-year period, saving state taxpayers an estimated USD 42 million in medical costs.http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/10/health/colorado-teen-pregnancy/
==External links==
* Beforeplay.org website
==References==
Behavioral modernity

Anthropologists, archeologists, and sociologists use the term behavioral modernity to refer to a list of traits that distinguish present day humans and their recent ancestors both from living primates and from other extinct hominid lineages. While it remains an influential idea in paleoanthropological contexts, John J. Shea has recently characterised the concept as "qualitative, essentialist, and a historical artifact of the European origins of Paleolithic research."Shea, J. J. (2011) Homo sapiens is as Homo sapiens was
==Paleoanthropology==
In paleoanthropology, the idea of behavioral modernity is associated with the belief that there are significant differences between the oldest Homo sapiens and populations younger than 50 kya. It is often defined as the point at which Homo sapiens began to demonstrate a reliance on symbolic thought and to express cultural creativity. The idea has recently come under siege; J. Shea writes: "The strongest reason for discarding 'behavioral modernity' and 'modern human behavior' is that they lack analytical precision."https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658067?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents In the paper, he proposes that the concept be entirely replaced by the more quantitative measurement of behavioral variability. Behavioral modernity is also sometimes called the "Upper Paleolithic Revolution". In reference to this, revisionists Sally McBrearty and Alison Brooks referred to it as "the revolution that wasn't," pushing back the origins of modern behavior to the Middle Stone Age.Sally McBrearty and Alison S. Brooks. (2000) The Revolution That Wasn't: A New Interpretation of the Origin Modern Human Behavior. Journal of Human Evolution, vol. 39, pp. 453–563
The difference between behaviorally modern and anatomically modern humans, or even species like Homo erectus and the Neanderthals, is a subtle one, since even 300kya modern humans in Africa were conducting trade and using pigments. The earliest known example of doodling comes from an engraving scratched onto a shell over 500kya by an unknown Homo erectus individual,"Homo erectus made world's oldest doodle 500,000 years ago" - Nature News and some people think that erectus invented the earliest boats and rafts.
==External links==
* Ofer Bar-Yosef. The Upper Paleolithic Revolution. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2002. 31:363–93.
==References==
Category:Anthropology
Category:Archaeology
Category:Evolution
Category:Sociology
Behe: The Edge of Evolution, Interview

Dr. Michael Behe is a Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University and a prominent fellow of the Discovery Institute.Discovery Institute biography He is a high-profile advocate of Intelligent Design, and his work is mentioned in the Discovery Institute's wedge document.
His second book, The Edge of Evolution (2007), formulates an idea of the intelligent designer as the "great mutator," driving the mutations which drive evolution.
__TOC__
==Questions & RationalWiki response==
===What do you believe Darwinian evolutionary processes can actually do?===
===The book’s subtitle speaks of the “limits of Darwinism.” Are you saying that Darwin’s theory is completely wrong?===
===How does the book evolve from the failure of randomness to the conclusion of intelligent design? Aren’t there possible unintelligent evolutionary explanations other than Darwinism?===
===What evidence speaks most clearly to the role of intelligent design in biology?===
===How does intelligent design differ from the prevailing Darwinist view of evolution?===
===How does intelligent design differ from creationism? What do you say to critics who charge that it is merely “creationism in disguise”?===
===Do you see intelligent design as a concept that provides a resolution to the creation vs. evolution debate? Is there ever a point where science and religion might meet in some form of compromise – and does intelligent design help to provide that answer?===
===In Edge of Evolution you indicate that some of the evidence supporting common ancestry is pretty persuasive. Yet a number of scientists have questioned some of the evidence for common ancestry. Do you think it is beyond the pale for them to do so? In your mind is it scientific to question common ancestry?===
===How does your view of intelligent design in biology fit with the findings and theories of cosmology and physics?===
==='Is it necessary to conclude that the designer is God?===
===Why do you think there is such resistance within the scientific community to the idea of intelligent design?===
===One criticism of ID has been that it makes no predictions, and thus is unscientific. Does The Edge of Evolution address this?===
===Are there lessons we can learn from the study of malaria and HIV to help us, as a species, protect ourselves from viral and parasitical threats? How might other fields, such as medicine, be affected by intelligent design?===
==Afterthoughts==
==See also==
*Wedge Document (Showing how the Intelligent Design movement is being used by Christian fundamentalists.)
*Intelligent Design and Academic Freedom by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR
*Vandalism to this page
==References==
Category:Side-by-side articles
category:Pseudoscience
Category:Pseudoscience promoters
Category:Assessing pseudoscience
Category:Evolution
Category:Creationism
Category:Refutations
Category:Discovery Institute
Being of light

The beings of light, energy beings, or light beings are yet another group of non-corporeal entities within the paranormal and ufology lore. They could be the polar opposite of the Shadow People since they are anything but sinister. There is no general agreement about their place of origin. They often hail from the Andromeda Galaxy — because as in Star Trek, what comes from there must be weird for some reason — if not from higher dimensions."What Are Light Beings?". Awakened Vibrations.
Although some spiritual people regard humans as "beings of light,"Ascension Now. such a view is more closely related to belief in the immortal soul than to belief in the otherworldly type of light being. Much like Pleiadians and the light beings too are sometimes claimed to protect the Earth from fictional, invasive forces such as Reptilians. Energy beings can be contacted through astral projection, dreaming, and meditation. Some of the information they have shared is just painfully obvious advice, such as using electric cars to reduce pollution in cities.Collier, Alex (July 2010). "The Andromedans and Mentoring Humanity". Exopolitics Journal.
==Physical impossibility==
Something made out of "pure energy/light" is impossible by definition. Energy is a measurable, transferrable property of physical systems as the ability to do How much energy a system has is a function of other measurable properties such as frequency, mass, speed, temperature, etc. Energy has no proper independent existence, as matter and radiation do. In contrast to this, woo treats it like a substance that can take a "pure" form and compose complex systems such as living beings. Saying light composes them makes no sense either. Photons do not behave like molecules at all. Those of visible wavelengths are usually emitted by matter at high temperatures, which is unable to serve as a substrate for life. More plausibly, they could be organisms that light up their tissues with enzymatic reactions and generate "cold light". However, no source describes them as such. In short, "beings of pure energy" is an idea from science fiction — one which wouldn't work in the real world.
==See also==
*Energy woo — More misconceptions about energy.
*Light woo — Being able to form living organisms is only one of the many capabilities wrongly attributed to light.
*Pleiadians — They are essentially the same, the difference being that they look like ordinary humans, except more beautiful.
*Cassiopaeans — An example of channeled entities claimed to be light beings, also claimed to be from the same source as the channeled Pleiadians, Ra, and others.
*Beings that really are on a spectrum
==References==
Category:New Age
Category:Ufology
Category:Woo
Beira's Place

Beira's Place is a British anti-trans hate group that masquerades as a "private support service for female victims of sexual violence." It is the transphobic pet project of J.K. Rowling, who has taken it upon herself to redefine womanhood in ways that serve her transphobic worldview. Its sole purpose is therefore to exclude trans women while attempting to frame trans people as a threat to cis women.
Rowling cited her personal history as a motivation for funding the establishment of a private "support centre for female victims of sexual violence" in Edinburgh in December 2022.The Guardian: JK Rowling launches support centre for female victims of sexual violence"The Times: JK Rowling launches service for women victims of sexual violence before Scotland brings in self-ID law" This service — named Beira's Place after the "Scottish goddess of winter" — is frequently lauded as a "women's shelter," "rape crisis centre," and "refuge" by Rowling's supporters, but reading the website makes it clear it doesn't offer shelter space or crisis support.Beira's Place: About UsBeira's Place: FAQs It provides one-on-one and group counselling by appointment only. The centre is not wheelchair accessible and clients are advised not to bring children. Board member Rhona Hotchkiss served as governor of the women's prison until 2019.NHS Scotland Events: Rhona Hotchkiss In 2016, it was reported that inmates faced "Victorian conditions" and long queues for access to a shared toilet, with some being instructed by staff to "pee in the sink" if they couldn't wait.BBC News: Cornton Vale prisoners 'forced to use sink as a toilet'Holyrood: Cornton Vale toilet conditions 'wholly unacceptable in the 21st century', warns chief prisons inspector Hotchkiss asserted in 2022 that she would've resigned if she'd still been governor during the The Telegraph: Former prisoner governor says she would have quit over trans rapistDaily Mail: Ex-governor of Scottish women's prison 'would have quit' if she'd been told to house transgender rapist with female inmates
==References==
Category:Denialist organizations
Category:Hate groups
Category:Transphobia
Category:TERFs
Category:United Kingdom
Ben Best

Ben Best is a woomeister best-known for his promotion of cryonics. He wrote a startling green ink PDF which is actually the best available scientific justification of cryonics practice.Abstract: Benjamin P. Best. Scientific Justification of Cryonics Practice. Rejuvenation Research. April 2008, 11(2): 493-503. doi:10.1089/rej.2008.0661. Full text here
He was the President and CEO of the Cryonics Institute and has contributed to RationalWiki's cryonics article. 
In addition to promoting cryonics, Ben also advocates nutritional supplements on his website. His justificationsNutraceuticals Topic Index (benbest.com) claim that the difference between medicine and supplements is a large amount of money spent on patentability, rather than the scientifically proven lack of efficacy of much of what he advocates (e.g. antioxidants, chelation therapy). These activities question his understanding of how the scientific method applies to things you want to be true.
Ben is a proud and active member of Mensa. He used to be in Erhard Seminars Training. Along with many other cryonicists, in the mid-1990s, Best left Alcor Life Extension Foundation to join CryoCare Foundation that a small group of dissatisfied Alcor activists formed in late 1993.
==External links==
*Ben Best's website, with BoingBoing favicon.
==References==
Category:Pseudoscience promoters
Category:Science woo
Category:Living people
Benefit scrounger

"Benefit scrounger" is a snarl word used by right-wing newspapers and related talking airheads in the United Kingdom. The benefit scrounger, according to these sources, is an individual who makes a profession out of milking the welfare system for all it is worth, rather than entering gainful employment.
The term is an example of the straw man fallacy, as most welfare recipients in the U.K. are either willing or unable to work,Otherwise this wouldn't have happened, would it? and the few people who do cheat the system cause comparatively little drain upon it.For example, despite the many headlines about fraudulent Disability Living Allowance claims, the true figure was around half a percent of all monies paid out. In addition, the sums paid out in benefits are such that it would be virtually impossible to earn more from benefits than full-time work without engaging in colossal fraud, which there are already laws to prevent. Naturally, the papers never put as much effort into demonising tax avoiders who cost the Treasury a lot more. 
Anecdotes are another favoured tactic of these sources; they will take someone from the tiny minority of welfare recipients who are fraudulent or who received more money than they should have and sensationalise the story. Thus, the stereotype has been adopted by much of both the public and the coalition and Tory cabinets as an excuse for savage cuts in benefits and increasingly draconian tests to acquire them. As some illnesses and injuries are not visible to the naked eye (especially an untrained one), some pundits will quite arrogantly claim that many are fit to work, as if they know better than medical professionals who have seen them face-to-face.
==See also==
*Welfare queen -- The equivalent concept in the United States.
*Welfare policy of the United Kingdom
==References==
Category:Political terms
Category:Neologisms
Category:Conservative deceit