As we all know, the old days were the best. You know. Ye olden days. This is what I thought when I received this tweet alert from @ClaireMcCallion earlier today: http://twitter.com/ClaireMcCallion/status/321298065220833280 It links to an article just out in the American Psychological… Read More ›
Time to reprint those fan t-shirts, folks, as a new date has been added to my world tour. Next Tuesday evening I’m giving the keynote lecture at Psych Fest 2013, the, er, psychology festival at Mary Immaculate College, University of… Read More ›
Well, kind of. Here is a video of the keynote lecture I gave as part of the #celt12 ‘Written Word’ conference held last June in Galway, Ireland. Why not set aside 29 minutes or so of your life and watch something… Read More ›
As you can see above, this here blog caught the attention of the Irish Times yesterday, with founder skeptic Paul O’Donoghue using it as the hook for his latest column in the science section. [Greetings, Irish Times readers! By the way, here’s… Read More ›
People who know me personally will know that I don’t take cancer lightly (for various reasons I won’t go into here). So I am always a bit reluctant to criticize people who make the fight against cancer their life’s mission. After… Read More ›
I recently came across this campaign for homeopathy awareness. Sounds good to me, we could certainly do with a helluva lot more awareness in this area. In fact, one of the more surprising reactions I encounter when I discuss homeopathy… Read More ›
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… Read More ›
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… Read More ›
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… Read More ›
What’s the most cited academic paper on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)? Is it an evidence-based trial demonstrating the efficacy of a particular therapy? Is it a systematic review of a collection of efficacy literature? Is it a paper that… Read More ›
This is a slightly unusual format for a post on this blog, but I thought it was worth recording for posterity. It concerns the rather bizarre suggestion made yesterday by some UK-based homeopaths about a good way of defending homeopathy… Read More ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
Reiki is a complementary therapy in which a therapist’s hands are placed on — or simply near — a patient’s body, with the intention of redirecting what are purported to be vital energy flows in order to enhance the patient’s… Read More ›
The Irish Times is the so-called “newspaper of record” in Ireland. It has a reputation for being Ireland’s leading print source of intellectual commentary and political analysis. It is widely regarded as maintaining impeccable journalistic standards and of being one… Read More ›
Providers of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are always absolutely thrilled whenever real medical doctors claim to support their activities. Such support from authentic physicians constitutes a highly persuasive form of community advertising. Therefore, the fact that an entire organization… Read More ›
