How many people believe in quackery? In case you thought we were winning http://post.ly/1uofh— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) April 18, 2011 Last week, the British market research firm YouGov published findings from a national UK opinion survey on complementary and alternative… Read More ›
Archive for April 2011
Towards a quantum Theory of Everything (including dirty dishes)
Perhaps few words in contemporary science have been abused as much as “quantum”. Simply put, a quantum is the minimum amount of an entity that can actually do anything. One example is a photon, which is the minimum amount of… Read More ›
Politico.ie covers “The Babel Fish”
Following up on last week’s Irish Skeptics Society lecture on science communication, journalist John Holden filed a report on the Irish politics and current affairs website, Politico.ie. As part of his analysis, Holden notes that: ”In the Irish media there is… Read More ›
The Babel Fish Dilemma: Talking Science with Non-Scientists
Last night I gave a public lecture in Dublin for the Irish Skeptics Society, entitled “The Babel Fish Dilemma: Talking Science with Non-Scientists“. The Irish Skeptics, under the leadership of psychologists Paul O’Donoghue and Nóirín Buckley, have been organizing a… Read More ›
Alcohol causes cancer? If you assume so, yes
Last week, a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) linked alcohol consumption with cancer risk, and duly attracted extensive international media coverage. News outlets around the world keenly reported on the carcinogenic properties of alcohol. This description from BBC… Read More ›
Extinction of religion predicted by mathematics? Don’t count on it
Recently, a mathematical model predicting the extinction of organized religion received global media attention after its presentation at a research meeting of the American Physical Society. According to the BBC news website, the researchers had shown that religion is “set… Read More ›
“Atheists die first”: CNN’s “expert” fights back
This is psychologist, Dr Wendy Walsh, discussing the merits of religion on CNN. Rather melodramatically, she is focusing on the purported advantage of being religious during catastrophic survival situations. According to Walsh, “Most studies on survivors show that the atheists… Read More ›