Last October, I wrote that COVID-19 had created a stampede of shoddy research. Little has changed in the interim. Putting all hands to the pump might feel appropriate in a crisis, but during a global public health emergency, rushing headlong into the scholarly frontline is anything but okay. Frankly, it is […]
Hello! I hope your Saturday is going well. Here is a talk I gave in November, at the Psychological Society of Ireland’s annual conference. The transcript appears below. Enjoy! * * * * * * Transcript: Psychology, religion, and public policy Now, this particular topic is very wide-ranging. I wouldn’t […]
Well, that escalated quickly. Or, rather, slowly. Because when democracies start to fray, the corrosion is usually incremental. Few regimes are overthrown overnight. The first few inflammatory statements are dismissed as innocuous, even idiotic, but gradually norms are shifted, tribes moulded, and scapegoats identified. Out-group hostility is the fulcrum of […]
It turns out that not all medical doctors are infallible. Who knew? Some of them, it seems, dally at the margins of pseudoscience. Take for example the latest BMJ Op-Ed from the doctor who cured himself of long COVID. He says he did so through positive thinking. Go him! ‘Pseudoscience’ is […]
Guess what. Vaccines are not part of the Christian creator’s divine plan for the universe. We know this because they are not mentioned — anywhere — in the Christian Bible. So says this lady, as reported by this website. To quote: I just decided to just Google what the Bible says about […]
Releasing the Genie Notwithstanding frantic after-the-fact efforts to rehabilitate the town’s reputation, there is little doubt that alt-right/far-right extremists successfully infiltrated that public meeting in Oughterard. The townspeople currently protesting the proposed Direct Provision facility (Ireland’s version of an asylum seeker reception centre) are not members of any far-right organisation. They are […]
