Personality goes a long way…toward making you sick

Posted on February 19, 2012 | 1 Comment

This is dangerously close to “day job” territory, but yesterday evening I was on the wireless talking about the relationship between psychological traits and physical health. This was part of the excellent Futureproof show on Newstalk 106-108 fm, hosted by the also-excellent Jonathan McCrea (and produced by the just-as-excellent Shaun O’Boyle). You can access the podcast of the show by clicking here (readers who have sold their souls to iTunes can do their business here). My segment begins at 8:32 and lasts for around twelve minutes.

Button fans can click here instead

From a science communication perspective, the item is helpful in addressing a topic that is very often discussed in terms of — how shall I put it? — mumbo jumbo and pseudoscience. For centuries, it has been claimed that personal temperaments affect illness and well-being (consider Galen’s four humours or astrology). Moreover, therapy-merchants of various degrees of rigour have made a good living from offering attractive think-yourself-better solutions for physical health problems. Continue reading →

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Posted in Jargon, Pseudoscience, Science, Scientific literacy, Health, Genetics, Naive optimism, CAM, Astrology, Stress, Animal studies, Heart disease, Audio, Published paper, Psychology, Newstalk, Futureproof (Radio show)

One year in: The Science Bit’s greatest hits

Posted on February 17, 2012 | 4 Comments

I am generally nonplussed by birthdays. And I realise that blog posts about blog posts can sometimes be boring. However, as I’m an obsessive hoarder and a data geek, in this case I am going to make an exception. You see, The Science Bit is one year old today.

That’s right, it has reached the big ’1′.

*Cue music* There have been highs, and there have been lows; vivid memories and lots of stuff that I’ve forgotten. Readership has waxed and waned, but gradually grown. Some people have been happy. Others have been bored. Millions of people have completely ignored me. But rather than dousing you with further personal reminiscences, I thought I would instead simply feed back to you a countdown of the five most read posts of the past twelve months.

A special item that I like to call…’REELING IN THE YEAR‘

Continue reading →

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Posted in Acupuncture, Agence France-Press, Alcohol, Authority appeals, Autism, BBC News, CAM, Cancer, CBC, Celebrities, CNN, Confirmation bias, Conservatism, Cosmetics, Daily Mail, Dodgy advertising, Environment, Food, Fox News, Health, Heart disease, Irish Examiner, Irish Independent, Irish Times, Jargon, List, Mathematics, Medical Independent, Naive optimism, Politics, Pregnancy, Press Association, Pseudoscience, Psychology, Psychology Today, Race, Religion, Science, Scientific literacy, Sexism, Skepticism, Statistics, Television, The Guardian, Video

Want to lose weight? Hint: Do NOT eat chocolate cake

Posted on February 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

Mmmmm. Chocolate cake. As in “cake” with “chocolate” in it. It’s a straightforward, yet somehow radical, concept. Except it’s not that radical. It’s just everyday, common-or-garden, run-of-the-mill chocolate cake. Tastes nice, but is not good for you; eating lots of it makes you fat, etc., etc., etc. Everybody knows this. I mean, if you were to stop eating, say, fruit for breakfast every morning, and started to eat chocolate cake for breakfast instead, that would just be crazy, wouldn’t it? For one thing, it would make you put on weight, that would. Wouldn’t it?

But have a look at these headlines: “Want to lose weight? Eat chocolate cake for breakfast, say researchers” (Daily Mirror), “Chocolate cake breakfast could help you lose weight” (Daily Telegraph), “Happy Chocolate Day! Chocolate cake for breakfast could help you lose weight” (Huffington Post), “Dessert with breakfast can help weight loss” (MSN New Zealand), “Desserts at Breakfast Could Lead to Weight Loss (Really!)” (Allure Magazine), and many more.

It’s those darned “researchers” again, turning the breakfast tables on us and grabbing the media’s attention. According to these guys, it seems as though eating chocolate cake at breakfast actually helps you to lose weight, rather than put it on. Whodathunkit? I guess that’s why people who eat lots of cake are just so thin.

And that’s that, I suppose. End of. Nothing to see here.

But hang on a minute…

Continue reading →

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Posted in Allure Magazine, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Dieting, Food, Health, Huffington Post, MSN NZ, Naive optimism, Newspapers, Research design

How to argue illogically: Tony’s ten top tips

Posted on February 8, 2012 | 47 Comments

Last Friday, the Irish Examiner published an opinion piece by pop psychologist Tony Humphreys, presenting a re-hash of the now anachronistic view that autism is caused by poor parenting (the so-called “refridgerator mom” theory). Oh, and despite claiming to explain the causes of autism, he simultaneously sought to argue that autism doesn’t exist.

Several authors have already described the various factual inaccuracies in the Humphreys article, the unwarranted distress it causes to parents of children with autism, its stigmatization of people based on their personality or occupation, its stigmatization of persons with needs for mental health and psychological services, its promotion of scientific myths, and its misrepresentation of the field of psychology (both professional and academic).

However, whatever about the errors in its subject matter (which are manifold), there is at least one sense in which the Humphreys article can be welcomed. For it gives us a wonderful opportunity to examine the various ways in which people in positions of professional authority can end up talking rubbish. In fact, seldom have I seen so many logical fallacies crammed into such a brief piece. It really is an excellent teaching tool, and I highly recommend it to teachers of critical reasoning, logic, epistemology, clinical decision-making, and scientific communication.

Therefore, I present to you: Tony’s Ten Top Tips for mounting illogical arguments…

Continue reading →

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Posted in Authority appeals, Autism, Celebrities, Irish Examiner, List, Newspapers, Pseudoscience, Psychology, Scientific literacy

Scientific literacy on the rise (Must put a stop to that then…)

Posted on February 6, 2012 | 2 Comments

Late last year, I posted a piece on a hoax news story then doing the rounds online, concerning a local councillor in Ireland who claimed that his area was especially suitable for cloud computing because of all the clouds. The post received a bucket load of hits, scooping the Daily Telegraph (who ran the original story without realising it was a hoax) and getting picked up by bloggers at Slate magazine.

Today I bring you the story that an Irish parliamentarian (yes, a member of the national parliament rather than of a local council) has proposed a change in the law regarding car registration plates, to allow motorists to avoid license plates that contain the number ’13′. You know, because ’13′ is so unlucky.

And this time, I kid you not, it ain’t a hoax. Continue reading →

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Posted in Commerce, IrishCentral.com, Numerology, Politics, Scientific literacy, thejournal.ie

The costs of complementary medicine

Posted on February 3, 2012 | 8 Comments

Here is an opinion piece I wrote for in this week’s Modern Medicine magazine. The version below is the final draft prior to some very minor typographical edits. The article also appears online at irishhealth.com, where you can also read a companion article presenting an opposing perspective on complementary medicine. Modern Medicine is published by Medmedia Publications and edited by Ken Fitzsimons.

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Last year saw the death from cancer of Steve Jobs, the entrepreneur who brought us the iPhone, a visionary credited with enhancing the lives of millions through insight and intellectual brilliance. Nonetheless, although acclaimed as a technological sophisticate, Jobs had a proclivity for the esoteric. When diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he chose to eschew ordinary medicine and instead turned to complementary and alternative medicine (or CAM). His therapies included dietary treatments, “hydrotherapy”, acupuncture, naturopathy, and even the occasional visit to a psychic. Continue reading →

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Posted in Celebrities, Pseudoscience, Scientific literacy, Skepticism, Health, Naive optimism, CAM, Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Cancer, Herbal medicine, Heart disease, Published paper, irishhealth.com, Modern Medicine (magazine), Naturopathy, Hydrotherapy

L’Oréal are at it again

Posted on February 1, 2012 | Comments Off

L’Oréal are at it again. Today the UK Advertising Standards Authority have once more come down hard on one of their advertisements, which has now been banned. The ad was deemed flawed in one pretty critical respect. It was flagrantly — and knowingly — dishonest.

In pushing its Revitalift anti-wrinkle cream, L’Oréal have been presenting images of purported beneficiary Rachel Weiss without drawing attention to the fact that the photographs have been digitally enhanced. Yes, that’s right, the reason the nice lady in the photo doesn’t have wrinkles is not because Revitalift has skin-smoothing properties, it is because someone at L’Oréal is adept at using Photoshop.

What I think is particularly disturbing here is that L’Oréal are very clearly serial offenders. This is not the first time they have had one of their ads banned on the grounds of blatantly misleading women. It’s not even the first time they have been caught airbrushing photographs of celebrities in order to make it look like their products eliminate wrinkles.

They’re just after getting caught doing exactly the same thing in ads featuring Christy Turlington and Julia Roberts. That was part of a broader campaign that employed spurious jargon and (deliberately) incoherent reasoning to capitalise upon what they must assume is the scientific illiteracy of their customers. I blogged about this here.   Continue reading →

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Posted in Authority appeals, Celebrities, Cosmetics, Dodgy advertising, Jargon, Pseudoscience, Scientific literacy, Sexism, The Guardian

EXCLUSIVE: Britain facing boom in dodgy surveys

Posted on January 25, 2012 | 2 Comments

The scientific method is truly amazing. Not only can it be applied to such clichéd domains as physics, chemistry, biology, flying people to the moon, curing cancer, adding ears to the backs of mice, cloning sheep, and running tarantulas through MRI scanners, it can also be used to resolve age-old philosophical conundrums like “How do you know that a liar isn’t lying when he tells you he’s a liar?” And boy does this open up a world of exciting scientific possibilities. For example, according to the lead story in today’s (UK) Independent, researchers have now exploited their ingenuity to establish that the people of Britain are “facing a boom in dishonesty“. More than that: the British people are exhibiting “a dramatic decline in private integrity“. It’s all over the front page. It’s the main headline. It’s tagged as an “EXCLUSIVE“. In other words, it is REALLY BIG NEWS.

I think I will always remember where I was when I heard that the people of Britain were facing a boom in dishonesty. If 9/11 and the Challenger disaster were flashbulb memories, well this revelation is basically the supernova SN 2006gy of all human recollections.

Unfortunately, the underlying research from which the evidence for this extravagant scoop is drawn is beset by a few problems. But just a few. Things like the method, for example. And the data. And how the data were analysed. And interpreted. Just piddly stuff like that. Continue reading →

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Posted in Conservatism, Economics, Newspapers, Politics, Statistics, Surveys, The Independent