I’m back. Yes, it was a great holiday – & no – it wasn’t long enough 🙂 And yes, I did spend a lot of time lying around under an umbrella by the water, reading books & generally applying myself to relaxing. Anyway, one of those books was Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science, which follows on from his blog of […]
Continue readingTag: pseudoscience
breathe through your left nostril…
… and the air will go up to the right side of your brain & improve your creativity. NOT!!! I thought I’d seen a fair bit of nonsense but this one was new to me. It’s one of several pseudoscientific claims that are due for a right royal debunking next month. Unfortunately this is in […]
Continue readinghuman-chimp similarities – evolution? or design?
(Another link-&-comment today – I’m at a conference & a bit short of time for longer posts.) The Sensuous Curmudgeon offers a dry commentary on a web-post by the Discovery Institute oops Institute for Creation Research (thanks to the Curmudgeon). The DI post is itself a commentary on a recent research paper looking at the […]
Continue readingsomething fishy here…
It seems that fish oil is back in the news. This morning’s Herald carried an item about a school that’s trialling the use of omega-3 fish oils in enhancing student performance. They obviously haven’t heard of the Durham ‘trials’ in the UK…
Continue readingrain man? – rainfall & autism
I get a daily compendium of science-related headlines – yesterday one in particular caught my eye. It said: Autism linked with rainfall in study: Children who live in the US Northwest’s wettest counties are more likely to have autism, but it is unclear why.
Continue readingcandles & ears – not a good mix
This topic’s one that I use when I’m talking with year 10 students about critical thinking: ear candling. It involves the close approach of ears & candles. Hollow, burning candles.
Continue readingmore on the pau d’arco question
The question in question was about the proposed use of the herb pau d’arco as a prophylactic against MRSA: Evaluate the claims of the therapist, then use your biological knowledge to discuss the advice given. What are the possible evolutionary & ecological outcomes of the proposed treatment?
Continue readingthinking carefully about the question
We spend quite a bit of time on critical thinking during the Schol preparation days. This is because of the need – identified by the examiner’s report every year – for candidates to think critically about both the question (just what is the examiner asking me to do?) and their response to it (what, of all […]
Continue readinga pile of brown stuff
I was eating my muesli & idly flicking through the ‘lifestyle’ insert that comes with the morning paper when I happened on a page of ways to get oneself healthy for summer. Since at the moment my preparation for summer consists of walking the dog every morning & pedalling madly on the exercycle in the […]
Continue readingpseudoscience? bad science, anyway
Here’s an interesting little press release, about a study that purports to show that women find the sound of fast cars (&, by extension, the men driving them) very exciting! Gosh, that’ll push up the sales of luxury cars… (And thanks to Orac, where I originally saw the story.) But does this study really show what’s […]
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