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 still only one page per week devoted to ‘hard science’ […]
Newspapers & Magazines
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 public lecture series on science engagement, critical thinking, and skepticism […]
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 News was pretty typical: “A large Europe-wide study in the […]
A fishy tale: Omega-3, Alzheimer’s, and IQ
The Irish Times’s tolerance for pseudoscientific health claims has been discussed here before. This week, as if responding to an impulse, the Times again published a controversial health story under the guise of grassroots health activism. On this occasion, the Times are promoting the claim that omega-3 fish oils have […]
Superfast “supermoon” U-turn by the Daily Mail
I realise that the rolling news agenda can change extremely quickly in today’s media saturated world, but even this is slightly dramatic… Daily Mail, 9 March 2011: Daily Mail, 11 March 2011:
“Radiation is good for Japan”: Coulter’s case dissected
Have a listen to Ann Coulter talking to Bill O’Reilly on Fox News last week (the show aired on St Patrick’s Day, hence O’Reilly’s green tie). Coulter is a social conservative columnist and lawyer, well known in the US for her right-wing diatribes. Here she is talking about recent events […]
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That BMJ review of Long Covid therapies does not show what it says it does
My submission on the new Canadian draft recommendations for Long Covid
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“A science that does not allow opposing opinions abolishes knowledge.” Er, kind of
Getting it Right: Addressing Myths about the 2021 NICE Guideline for ME/CFS
