Tag: Pseudo-Science

Knievelism – Is your stunt dramatic enough?

The Comedy and Tragedy Masks
Previously, I wrote about the issues that The 10:23 Campaign and its participants needed to consider in their laudable opposition to homeopathy. There, I wanted to focus on technical issues like safety and logic.

A major tactic of The 10:23 Campaign in 2010 was to generate educational opportunities by means of an attention gathering stunt – the mass overdose. While I have safety and scientific issues with the mass overdose stunt, it is also not clear why it should be a particularly compelling event to the relatively disinterested audience that is the general public. Why?

The mass overdose stunt is boring. Continue reading “Knievelism – Is your stunt dramatic enough?”

Supreme Court declines creationist appeal

We can add one more case to creationism’s long record of legal failures. Yes, a creationist biology class is not adequate preparation for college coursework. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in a case involving applicants to the University of California system who were deemed to have inadequate college preparation in biology. From the NCSE:

On October 12, 2010, the Supreme Court declined (PDF, p. 12) to review Association of Christian Schools International et al. v. Roman Stearns et al., thus bringing the case to a definitive end. The case, originally filed in federal court in Los Angeles on August 25, 2005, centered on the University of California system’s policies and statements relevant to evaluating the qualifications of applicants for admission. Continue reading “Supreme Court declines creationist appeal”

Safe and Effective Skeptical Activism – The 10:23 Campaign

At 10:23AM on 30 January 2010, the 10:23 Campaign staged a mass overdose of homeopathic “medicine” to protest the sale of homeopathy products in Boots pharmacies, especially under the Boots brand name. The event generated a considerable amount of media attention and increased public awareness of the nature of homeopathy, although it has not yet succeeded in getting Boots to disavow homeopathy.

Spending on homeopathy by the government and private individuals is medically indefensible. Furthermore, wasting money on medically ineffective water and sugar pills at a time when local NHS trusts regularly run out of funds, and education and scientific research budgets may be slashed is ridiculous. Therefore, I am a strong supporter of the 10:23 Campaign’s goals and want nothing more[1] than to see them succeed.

But[3] I have concerns about the safety and efficacy of the 10:23 Campaign’s approach, which I have helpfully categorized as Economic, Philosophic, Scientific, Pedagogic, and Safety. Continue reading “Safe and Effective Skeptical Activism – The 10:23 Campaign”

When Supplements “Work”. . .Joy Slim Recall

An herbal supplement for weight loss called Joy Slim, is being discontinued and recalled. Why? Because it contains sibutramine, an FDA regulated drug. Sibutramine, an appetite suppressant, is also used to treat obesity. There is no word on whether the FDA will take further disciplinary action against the manufacturer.

Continue reading “When Supplements “Work”. . .Joy Slim Recall”

Scientific Potemkin Villages

Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway come up with cool name for a familiar strategy:

This strategy of creating a ‘scientific Potemkin village’ was applied to global warming too. During the period that we scrutinize in our book, the Marshall Institute didn’t create its own journal, but it did produce reports with the trappings of scientific argument — such as graphs, charts and references — that were not published in the independent peer-reviewed literature. At least one of these reports — read and taken seriously by the administration of former US president George H. W. Bush — misrepresented the science by presenting only part of the story. NASA climate modeller James Hansen and his team had demonstrated in the peer-reviewed literature that historic temperature records could be best explained by a combination of solar irradiance, volcanic dust, and anthropogenic greenhouse gases. The Marshall Institute report included only a single piece of Hansen’s graph, using the fragment to make it seem as if there was a poor link between carbon dioxide and climate warming, and to argue — against Hansen’s analysis — that the real culprit was the Sun.

And we can’t forget the pioneering efforts of creation scientists, who are masters of the scientific Potemkin Village.