As you read here in February, David Tuller and I attempted to respond to an alarming research paper that appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. The paper they had published had purported to show evidence that cognitive behavioural therapy leads to symptom improvements in […]
Published paper
What ‘Science By Press Conference’ looks like
Exhibit A: 1989 and Pons and Fleischmann announce cold fusion — an “inexhaustible source of energy” — at a press briefing in Utah, before they had applied for patents or published their technology. Too bad they were just plain wrong. I bet they feel embarrassed now. Exhibit B: 2002 and five-word […]
Scientists now working on the perfect joke (Not a joke)
Here is a table showing you how funny various errors made while texting actually are: You see, “I’ve sent you my fart” is much funnier than “Waited half n hour in the buss stop.” Good to know. So, scientists are now trying to “harness the power of autocorrect errors” in […]
American Psychological Association promotes pseudotherapies. Again.
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: This screams Pseudoscience at me.. @b_m_hughes? http://t.co/RicRJiMsrW — Claire McCallion (@ClaireMcCallion) April 8, 2013 It links to an article just out […]
Working the crowd
As part of my day job, I’m involved in psychology research examining the effects of having other people around when you’re trying to cope with mental stress. Here’s the summary of our findings to date: it’s complicated. But not to worry. All that means is that there’s plenty of toothpaste […]
Personality goes a long way…toward making you sick
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 […]