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Category: critical thinking

evidence vs spin

April 13, 2021 | Alison | critical thinking, science and society

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this blog post by New Zealand’s “Plan B” group. While initially this group opposed the government’s use of lockdowns to manage covid19 outbreaks in this country, they seem to have since moved on to opposing the rollout of vaccines against SARS-Cov-2. And, while they claim […]

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“doing my own research” & the scientific method

April 7, 2021 | Alison | communication, critical thinking, nature of science

This evening I was engaging in polite conversation (well, I was polite, anyway) on an RNZ Facebook post about – you guessed it! – the covid19 vaccination program. One of those present offered up a link to a blog post by Joseph Mercola to support a claim he was making about the vaccines. When I […]

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I’m still not in the money

March 24, 2021 | Alison | communication, critical thinking, science and society

In the last week water fluoridation has made the headlines again, alongside the continuing articles and posts related to SARS-Cov-2 and the rollout of vaccines against it. One of the common features shown by quite a few of those opposed to these 2 public health initiatives (fluoridation & vaccination) is a tendency to claim that […]

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luciferin, luciferase, etymology, & innuendo

February 10, 2021 | Alison | animal diversity, communication, critical thinking
luciferin, luciferase, etymology, & innuendo

On Friday we went for a walk in the Karangahake Gorge, and were very happy to discover (during the Windows Walk) that there are glow-worms in the darker parts of the mine workings. (Strictly speaking they’re glow-maggots as they’re the larvae of small flies/midges, but that is perhaps less attractive to the ear 🙂 ) […]

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those vaccine ingredients again

December 10, 2020 | Alison | communication, critical thinking, nature of science, science and society

A year ago I posted an explanation on vaccine “ingredients”, in relation to some wild claims made about the measles vaccine in the context of Samoa’s measles epidemic. From what I’ve seen on recent RNZ comments threads, an update for the time of SARS-Cov-2 is required. So, here’s purple making a statement about the Pfizer […]

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mammoth bones – and … potatoes???

December 8, 2020 | Alison | critical thinking, ecology, human evolution, plant structure

Today I came across an interesting share in a science group that I follow – an article about a “huge 25,000-yr-old hut” made of mammoth bones. Having really enjoyed Jean Auel’s “Earth’s Children” series, of course I was going to read on. But alas, the article was disappointing: the headline image didn’t match the story; […]

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it always pays to check before you share

November 19, 2020 | Alison | critical thinking, nature of science

Back in 2008, Dr Anthony Fauci (yes, that Dr Fauci) co-authored a paper that examined the interplay between influenza infection and secondary bacterial infection in mortality from the “Spanish flu¹” pandemic of 1918-19. He and his colleagues examined tissue samples taken during autopsies at the time of the pandemic, using their findings plus notes taken during […]

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it’s “only” a 1% death rate

August 31, 2020 | Alison | critical thinking, science and society

I’m seeing a bit of that phrase in my social media feeds at the moment, in relation to covid-19. In practice, this would mean that if everyone in New Zealand were to catch the virus eventually, that would be 50,000 people dead.  The ‘normal’ annual all-cause mortality in this country is around 33,000. It’s been […]

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covid myths & politics

August 10, 2020 | Alison | critical thinking, science and society, Uncategorised

This year’s election campaign in New Zealand has attracted a number of “fringe” parties, at least some of whose supporters seem to have a fairly tenuous hold on reality and a highly flexible approach to the truth. I mean, how else could one describe some of those affiliated with the NZPP/Advance coalition, whose members & […]

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applying the CRAAP test to Plandemic

May 10, 2020 | Alison | critical thinking

In the last couple of days I’ve seen a lot of individuals and pages share links to a trailer for “Plandemic”. And I’ve had friends ask me what I think of it. They’ve commented that it looks and sounds pretty ‘sciencey’ but wanted another opinion. So, I had a look, and here goes. The “Plandemic” […]

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Swan girl - portrait of the author as a young scientist This blog in response to comments from secondary school biology teachers. I hope to use it as a way of encouraging critical thinking, looking at scientific papers that are relevant to the Level 3 curriculum and to Scholarship.

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