(& a big ‘thank you!’ to Jean Fleming for showing me this on Facebook) This video featuring philosopher A.C. Grayling, on the BBC’s ‘Future’ page (which alas! did not give an embed code), is a must watch for those concerned with (& about) science literacy. Noting that many people feel excluded by science, he explains […]
Continue readingTag: science & society
reflections on the WEB days
We’ve just held the second day of the annual "Waikato Experience of Biology" (WEB) days – around 700 year 13 biology students, & their teachers, have come on campus over those 2 days for a program of seminars + some lab experience that supports their learning in several areas of their Biology curriculum. (There are […]
Continue readingsagan on science & society
Carl Sagan was a great science communicator with a wonderful turn of phrase. I found this quote a little while back & think it’s still apt today:
Continue readingthe worst use for mms yet?
I’ve written before about the so-called ‘Miracle Mineral Supplement’, or MMS: a substance that is no more, & no less, than industrial bleach. Regardless of its actual nature, MMS continues to be touted as a panacea for just about every ill known to mankind. The other day Orac posted a piece on MMS, & so […]
Continue readinghave universities degraded to teaching ‘only’ scientific knowledge?
The title for this post is taken from one of the search terms used by people visiting my ‘other’ blog (the one I share with Marcus & Fabiana), Talking Teaching. It caught my eye & I thought I’d use it as the basis of some musings (which are re-posted here). We’ll assume that this question […]
Continue readingit must be the silly season
… not only do we have at least one homeopath using heat to treat burns (yes, really! That piece of burning stupid – to use an Oracian aphorism – is admirably covered here by Grant), but we also have the Daily Mail announcing that scientists have discovered – ta-daah! – a hangover cure (hat-tip to David […]
Continue readingleeches & health – asking some questions
This morning’s Herald ran an article on ‘alternative therapies’ – New Zealanders’ beliefs about their effectiveness, & a Herald reporter’s experience of one such ‘therapy’. (Apparently there will be more to come over the next few days.) The article presented some results from a recent UMR research poll – as it was provided ‘exclusively to […]
Continue readingthe status & quality of year 11 & 12 science in australian schools
My reading assignment today was a report just out from the Australian Academy of Science (the AAS) on science in Australian secondary schools (Goodrum, Druhan & Abbs, 2011). Not what you might expect on a reading list in the week before Christmas, but I was up to speak (briefly) about it on Radio NZ & […]
Continue readinga ‘little job’ for the weekend
Well, here I am in Palmerston North, in order to run a Scholarship Biology preparation day tomorrow (for want sounds like being a large crowd). The trip across the Desert Road was amazing: I simply wasn’t expecting to see so much snow 🙂 If it hadn’t been a tad damp – with little snow flurries […]
Continue reading(non)impact of placebo on the common cold
Over on SciBlogs(NZ), Elf has an interesting post about rhinoviruses, the causal agent for the common cold. I’ve just read it & thought it particularly apt in light of a recent paper on the impact of placebo treatments on the duration of cold symptoms (hat tip to the inimitable Mark Crislip). The Medscape review for […]
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