One of the things that’s become quite obvious, in the various anti-vax comments that I’ve followed and responded to on line, is that people with ‘alt’ views have very firm ideas on what constitutes ‘the truth’. And it’s not something that mainstream organisations, authorities, or scienceA are seen as offering. And so (on a new […]
Continue readingCategory: nature of science
UNICEF (& friends) vs the outspoken antivaxxers
Back in mid-February, UNICEF NZ posted a piece on the importance of vaccines. Shortly thereafter, the comments thread had been overrun by anti-vaccination pro-disease activists. (I have to say, I’m really impressed with the person who does UNICEF’s social media. Talk about grace & dignity under fire!) This seems to happen every time a story […]
Continue readingwhat are the challenges for first-year core science courses?
Prof Karen Burke da Silva was the keynote speaker at Day 1 of the 2017 First-Year Science Educators' Colloquium, held in Wellington. Her topic:Transforming large first year science classes: A comprehensive approach to student engagement. Currently at Flinders University, she's been instrumental in setting up an 'integrated teaching environment' that's seen a drop in withdrawals, […]
Continue readingthe mms zombie rises to shamble once more
I've written about MMS – the "Miracle Mineral Supplement" – several times beforeA (here and here, for example). I guess it's a useful thing to hold up to show how something can clearly be woo – eg claims that it kills/cures practically everythingB under the sun – and yet people still buy the stuff. Buy […]
Continue readingno, we have no GM tomatoes
EDIT (11 Feb): it seems that the writer of the ‘we’re eating poison’ piece has decided to remove that page from their site. Which I guess is an improvement over the original. However, the good people over at Metabunk provided some useful links to the past, and this site appears to be the source used […]
Continue readingdoes science blogging still matter? yes. yes, it does.
That's the premise of an article in Nature (Brown & Woolston, 2018), which I discovered via the excellent Debunking Denialism on Facebook (& if that's not a good example of how various social media are interlinked, I don't know what is). Since mine is a science blog, obviously I was interested in the Nature narrative. Brown […]
Continue reading‘raw water’? eeewwww
'Raw water' – the latest foolish fad to hit people's screens, pockets, & in some instances I'd guess their toilet paper expenditure as well. I first heard of this particular litre of woo when I read an article in the New York Times with the headline: Unfiltered Fervor: the rush to get off the water […]
Continue readingmumps: learning from the comments threads
So, another All Black has come down with mumps and the comments threads are once more awash with those opposed to vaccines, posting the usual mix of pseudoscience and misinformation. Honestly, I would post a link on the Stuff FB page to this excellent commentary by Dr Mark Crislip, but I just know that the […]
Continue readingattitudes and antibiotics
A recent FB post from Stuff discussed the rising concerns around the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. (This is something that Siouxsie Wiles has often written about: here and here, for example; her excellent book on the subject is reviewed here.) Fairly predictably, it didn't take long for the proponents of essential oils to turn up, soon to be joined by the usual […]
Continue readinganti-vaccination activists – deluded and dangerous
The latest news reports indicate that the mumps outbreak in Auckland is spreading. As you might expect, the very first commenter on the FB page for that story is someone claiming that vaccines don’t cure mumps and offer a significant risk to health. (I wish Moveable Type allowed the Comic Sans font…) The only reason […]
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