Sunday, 22nd January
Stuff And NonsenseAn A-Z of Alternative Medicine
An incomplete list of alternative therapies, and comment on some of the benefits and risks. Acupuncture Acupuncture involves sticking needles in a patient. It is claimed by advocates of acupuncture that it works by regulating the flow of Qi and Blood by way of points found on “meridians”, which are ...
Saturday, 21st January
Left Brain/Right BrainThe Omnibus Autism Proceeding: effectively over
Left Brain/Right Brain
Trying to avoid bullying: like a groundhog trying to run from its shadow
Friday, 20th January
Left Brain/Right BrainNew Definition of Autism May Exclude Many, Study Suggests
Thursday, 19th January
Left Brain/Right BrainComment on “Timing of Increased Autistic Disorder Cumulative Incidence”
Wednesday, 18th January
Left Brain/Right BrainApply Now for a Travel Grant to IMFAR
Left Brain/Right Brain
Newt Gingrich, Autism Advocate
Monday, 16th January
DC's Improbable ScienceWhich? magazine: ??high street nutritional therapists are a waste of money?
Our undercover investigation finds evidence of nutritional therapists giving out advice that could seriously harm patients’ health Jump to follow-up That’s the title of an article in February’s Which? magazine. (That’s similar to Consumer Reports in the USA). “When Which? sent researchers to investigate the quality of advice from nutritional ...
Sunday, 15th January
Letting Off SteamAre We Psychic?
Last week the Daily Mail carried an article by Rupert Sheldrake suggesting that psychic powers such as telepathy and premonitions are more common than we think. What’s the evidence. His evidence amounts to a series of anecdotes such as this one: Like many mothers who feared for their family’s safety ...
Saturday, 14th January
Left Brain/Right BrainTime Magazine: Great Science Frauds
Thursday, 12th January
Left Brain/Right Brain
Autistic Advocacy Group Condemns Presidential Appointment of Anti-Vaccine Activist Peter Bell
Left Brain/Right Brain
Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, the first two chapters
Tuesday, 10th January
Left Brain/Right Brain
Brian Deer responds to David Lewis’ complaint
Monday, 9th January
DC's Improbable Science
Dodgy questionnaires and dubious projects: Wellbeing part 2
This is a synopsis of what I said at my talk December 1 2011 to the UCL Crucible Centre’s Café Scientifique group. |It was, in part, part of the UCL "Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing" The aim was to discuss whether wellbeing could be measured, and whether there was any ...
Left Brain/Right Brain
Navigating Love and Autism
Sunday, 8th January
Letting Off Steam
Deflecting Criticism 3 ? Whataboutery
Another very common means of deflecting criticism is ‘whataboutery’ where the supporter of the criticised viewpoint leaps up with a tangental or even totally unrelated problem you have not criticised. For example, you might criticise homeopaths for making dodgy claims and a homeopath comes back with “What about thalidomide?” with ...
Left Brain/Right Brain
Around the blogosphere January 8 2012
Saturday, 7th January
Left Brain/Right Brain
The Autism Vaccine Controversy and the Need for Responsible Science Journalism
Friday, 6th January
Stuff And Nonsense
Why Write About Alternative Medicine? Part One: The Media
Anyone who writes critical articles about alternative medicine is likely, at some point, to be asked why. Some commenters will ask why bloggers write about alternative medicine while ignoring the failings of conventional medicine. Some go so far as to invent a reason themselves and suggest that the blogger might ...
Left Brain/Right Brain
BMJ instructs lawyers to “defend the claim vigorously” against Andrew Wakefield’s lawsuit
Left Brain/Right Brain
No Evidence of Murine Leukemia Virus-Related Viruses in Live Attenuated Human Vaccines
Thursday, 5th January
Left Brain/Right Brain
Simons Foundation: Notable papers of 2011
Left Brain/Right Brain
Autism Speaks: Top Ten Autism Research Achievements of 2011
Left Brain/Right Brain
NIMH’s Top 10 Research Advances of 2011
Left Brain/Right Brain
Andrew Wakefield takes to the courts again
Wednesday, 4th January
Letting Off Steam
Eternal Youth Is Just Around The Corner. Not.
According to certain tabloid newspapers this morning (4 January 2012), the age-old dream of eternal youth is almost upon us, via a modern sciency method of stopping the aging process by means of stem cells. A story by the METRO’s Fred Attewill was headlined “Stem cell jabs hold secret of ...
Left Brain/Right Brain
Michele Bachman drops out of race for U.S. President
Tuesday, 3rd January
Letting Off Steam
Deflecting Criticism 2 ? Ad Hom Attacks
A favoured tactic of people who are finding the evidence against them a little overwhelming and difficult to refute is to resort to an ad hom (from the Latin ad hominem – to the man) attack i.e. attack the critic not the arguments s/he is making. It has certainly been ...
Sunday, 1st January
DC's Improbable Science
The demise of quackademia. Progress in the last 5 years leaves Michael Driscoll and Geoffrey Petts isolated.
Since writing about anti-scientific degrees in Nature (March 2007), much has been revealed about the nonsense that is taught on these degrees. New Year’s day seems like a good time to assess how far we’ve got, five years on. At the beginning of 2007 UCAS (the universities central admission service) ...
Letting Off Steam
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 31,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 11 ...