What is science and why should I care about it? Science is a reliable, reproducible, and verifiable process by which facts, and explanations of those facts, are established. The outcome of the scientific method is a useful and universally applicable framework of knowledge about the natural world. Knowledge gleaned […]
fighting pseudoscience
27 posts
I saw this headline in my Google News feed this morning: “Acupuncture Reduces Pain in Lung Cancer Patients – New Findings” [1]. The article was posted on a credulous site that promotes acupuncture, a practice that has never been proven to yield any benefit over the placebo effect. So I […]
This morning, I was sent a direct notice on Twitter indicating that something called “FoodIDTheft” had aggregated one of my tweets into some automated news feed. I was intrigued – since “FoodIDTheft” sounded like an inflammatory name intended to convey that this site helps people keep their food’s identity from […]
I’ve been engaged in a small conversation on a social network regarding the labeling of food as “genetically modified.” I’ve written specific thoughts about the scientific problems with that labeling recently in this blog [1]. I thought it might be useful to explain here how I got engaged in this […]
Three pin pricks from a vaccination injection before you become sexually active, or the risk of contracting a cancer that will require drugs, radiation, or surgery to control? What would you choose, for yourself or your child? The FUD over the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine has been high, so […]
Many people think that alternative medicine – what I call “sham medicine” – is the positive opposite of science-based medicine. Peddlers of sham medicine make all kinds of opposition claims. Claim: Science-based medicine has negative side-effects, whereas sham medicine only cures and never hurts. Claim: Science-based medicine is the domain […]
I had the pleasure of guest lecturing a few weeks ago in the CFB/PHY 3333 course (despite being on teaching leave this semester – Profs. Scalise and Cotton are mighty persuasive). Here is the lecture audio, if you’re interested: Lecture Audio – Homeopathy (Spring, 2013) We’ve added a new feature […]
It is rare that life presents an opportunity to look back at old posts and say, “I told you so.” Back when Tim Tebow was a household name and “Tebow-mania” gripped the sporting nation, I took a look at his statistics, including how he measured against the great quarterback in […]
As my colleague Prof. Scalise likes to say, it’s stupid – and a little bit funny – when pseudoscience peddlers and scam artists try to use their nonsense on people that teach a class in fighting pseudoscience and scams. I got my first one today, in Twitter (of all places). […]
Good timing! The company – Boiron – that produces that same homeopathic sleeping pill that we overdosed on in Friday’s lecture also recently published a TERRIBLE study of their migraine “remedy.” It’s a great example of how bad science can seem legitimate by making its way into a journal. The […]
Finding Parallel Worlds In the series “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” a well-crafted transporter modification is capable of hurling the crew of the station into a “mirror universe.” Everyone who exists in the known universe also exists in the mirror universe, but there they are not the same people. Major […]
This was a good week for prime examples of propaganda and pseudoscience. Let’s get started. 49 Cherry-Picked Questionable Authorities Can’t Be Wrong There was some recent buzz about “49 authorities” who sent a letter [1] to NASA’s chief and asked the agency to stop promoting the idea of human-induced climate […]