I have a pile of marking to get through this week, & so that I can make a good start today I thought I might just point you at some interesting posts from other science bloggers. Another tale of statistics from Ben Goldacre: this time it’s the frankly appalling story of where the lack of understanding cases […]
Continue readingTag: pseudoscience
best billboard ever?
A few posts ago I wrote something about ‘research’ into psychic phenomena, & why it was bad science. Now Orac has posted a sign that says it all: This highlights something that has always puzzled me about the claims made by various psychic practitioners, regarding their abilty to predict future events. Surely they’d have known? (I […]
Continue readingoverrun with creepy-crawlies? maybe not…
I blog a fair bit about the way science stories are (mis)represented in the press. And when I do, I always wonder what the original press release (from the intitution to the media) would have been like. Now Ben Goldacre’s posted an excellent item on one such release. The release in question came from a […]
Continue readingan update on facilitated communication
A while ago now I wrote about Rom Houben, who’d been in a vegetative state for 23 years but who, it was claimed, was really conscious inside an immobile body & now able to communicate via something known as ‘facilitated communication’. I and many others were sceptical of this claim – it looked too much […]
Continue readingbut it does no harm…
Over on Code for Life, Grant’s recently put up some posts concerning homeopathy (here & here, for example). He’s also suggested that homeopathic (& other) remedies should carry disclaimers to do with their active ingredients (or lack thereof) and what they can & can’t do. Anyway, one of the common responses to articles critical of homeopathy […]
Continue readingthe 8-glasses-a-day myth
I was at the gym yesterday when I read something in a women’s mag that quite put me off my stride on the cross-trainer. (In my defence, I’d forgotten to take a book & the only other reading material on offer was car magazines.) The offending article contained the following factoids: you need to drink at […]
Continue readingmms revisited
A while ago I wrote a post on the so-called ‘miracle mineral supplement’, aka MMS. I thought I’d re-post it following an article debunking this nostrum in the Sunday Star-Times. My original post attracted a couple of comments from people claiming that MMS will cure a multitude of ills; I’ve reproduced them, & my responses, […]
Continue readingapple juice & gallstones
A couple of years ago my father-in-law had an operation to remove a rather large gallstone, & with it his gall bladder. It had caused him a couple of urgent hospital admissions, through blocking the bile duct & causing a back-up of bile. He was quite seriously ill for a bit but is now fully […]
Continue readingtestimonial, anecdote, data…
In today’s Waikato Times there’s the following headline: Faith healers attack cancer, injuries with prayer. Unfortunately it’s not really possible to assess the claims being made for the power of prayer – because those attending this new clinic are advised to continue with regular medical treatment. So – in the event of someone’s health improving, it’s not […]
Continue readinga bit of thinking practice
I found the following on the Silly Beliefs website: [Someone] popped up on the Stuff web-site last month the day after the interesting magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Fiordland, suggesting we should expect further big earthquakes around the globe in the following week, because it was no coincidence that the Fiordland earthquake occurred a mere 30 minutes […]
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