Have a look at this recently launched public health campaign, pithily titled “Stop the Spread“. It aims to address the problem of overweight in the general population. Co-ordinated by Safefood, the statutory body responsible for the promotion of food safety in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the […]
Statistics
Wake up and smell the…woahhh!
Let’s get the controversy out of the way first. In the interests of full disclosure, I need to reveal an interest. I consume coffee. There. I’ve said it. Now you may think there is nothing particularly strange about that. After all, some 80% of the world’s population consume caffeinated products every […]
Sit down while I explain…
In case you haven’t heard, tobacco smoking is very bad for your health. In fact, it is extremely dangerous. It is associated with an astoundingly morbid gallery of adverse consequences, including a quadrupling of cardiovascular disease risk, a quadrupling of stroke risk, at least a dozen-fold increase in lung cancer […]
Why is this paper still cited?
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 explains a single major CAM modality, such as acupuncture or […]
When correlation does not imply “casualness”
Yesterday, the Daily Mail published a news story with the following headline: “Psychologists warn of ‘casual link’ between internet porn and rise in sex offences”. Hmm, a “casual link” you say? Really?! “Casual”? (Thank you to @EvidenceMatters and @decaux for pointing this out to me on Twitter.) Now, I guess this particular typo […]
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 still only one page per week devoted to ‘hard science’ […]
Recent Posts
The cries for help are getting louder. And that’s a good sign
“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
Talking to David Tuller about dualism
Where I speak to colleagues in the Swedish parliament…
