Ramblings, Offcuts, Purgations
The people who want you to think that everything is “all in your mind” are back, their schtick now revised and updated for a COVID-19 world. Here’s the Daily Telegraph: … Continue Reading Post-Covid syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, and the recurring pseudoscience of mass hysteria
[This article appeared in the June 2020 issue of the ‘Irish Psychologist’] As we all know by now, contagion is a matter of behaviour as well as biology. What we … Continue Reading Covid-19, Psychology, and the Politics of Life-and-Death Science
Social controversies are frequently seized upon by bigots. In Britain, for example, the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum saw a sharp increase in racist incidents, with reports of people … Continue Reading On “celebratory racism”
From the letters page of The Economist: A bridge too far Bartleby has an unerring ability to detect the nonsense emanating from HR (July 13th). At my job operating a drawbridge I … Continue Reading I guess some core competencies are just more core than others
From The Guardian‘s live blog just now: In the Brexit committee Michael Gove has just finished answering a series of questions about how Dover would cope with lorry arrivals in … Continue Reading Brexit contingency-planning latest: Don’t ask me, ask God, minister testifies
To be released in October 2019. Just when you thought it would be safe to get back into the water… Details here.
So this is Christmas; and what have you done? Well, this is what I’ve done: a whole lot of media, surrounding my public lecture on ‘The Psychology of Christmas‘ just … Continue Reading ‘Psychology of Christmas’ media round-up
About the Author Imprint: 2018 Psychology in Crisis Author: Brian M. Hughes Publisher: Palgrave, London ISBN-10: 1352003007 ISBN-13: 978-1352003000 Click here to view on Palgrave Macmillan Click here to view on Amazon.co.uk … Continue Reading ‘Psychology in Crisis’ is now available
Stephen Hawking is dead. Far be it from the likes of me to write him an obituary. You can see several of these elsewhere, many of them heartfelt and insightful. … Continue Reading Stephen Hawking RIP
I don’t want to be, well, argumentative. But this research does not show what the headline says it does. The headline implies that argumentative children do better in maths and … Continue Reading No, no, no, no, no
The Sunday Independent ran a short piece on psychics the other week, in which I was quoted as referring to “unreliable forces” when I had actually said “unreliable sources.” My bad, I’m sure. … Continue Reading “Are psychics the new psychologists?”
I have another post up over at Psychology Today, which has been included in a special feature on ‘The Science Behind Politics.’ This time I’m talking about negative political campaigning: …The … Continue Reading Political science
I’ve posted a piece at Psychology Today on the methodological problems surrounding Britain’s new alcohol consumption guidelines: The UK government has published new guidelines on healthy alcohol consumption and, yes, as might be predicted, … Continue Reading On alcohol guidelines and social desirability
Have you ever noticed how irrationalities (a) tend to cluster, (b) tend to offer hope to the desperate, and (c) tend to appeal to folks with strongly held dogmatic beliefs? … Continue Reading Who let the dogmas out?
Metaphors are powerful tools. Similes are like tools. And tools are — well, tools are just tools. Now, of the three statements just made, only the last (‘tools are tools’) … Continue Reading Why ‘Inside Out’ is kind of interesting
A letter in today’s Irish Times bemoans a recent column on homeopathy. The column had drawn attention to a report by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council that was … Continue Reading What’s the deal with that Swiss government homeopathy report?
