badscienceblogs

Part one of this series of posts was a po-faced commentary on the uncritical promotion of alternative medicine in the mainstream media. I pointed out the poor reporting of non-mainstream therapies, the inaccuracy and the incompleteness of press articles. I argued that this was a worthy reason for blogging about alternative medicine. Another reason is [...]

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 described as pathways. There is [...]

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 therapists, some was so bad [...]

Toward the end of last year, being in possession of two novelties - a girlfriend and a steady job - I decided to spend my free evenings crafting a very special piece of jewellery. I was inspired by a visit to Barometer World in the late summer, where I discovered the curious material known as storm glass (tragic backstory recounted here).

In short, a storm glass is a weather divination tool so old that nobody really knows where they came from. It’s likely they were borne out of alchemy experiments performed during the medieval period. Inside a sealed glass tube, crystals bloom, wither and vanish spontaneously, apparently spurred on by weather fronts. It was a thing of wondrous beauty.

Nobody knows what exactly makes storm glasses act this way. I’ve read in many places since that it is pressure changes, as with a barometer. This clearly isn’t true, as the fluid is sealed inside a solid glass chamber. Others cite temperature fluctuations - far more probable - or, more exotically, electrical discharge across the glass (again, unlikely, glass is a very fine electrical insulator). Even spooky quantum forces get a mention.

It was around then that an idea hatched in my head: if it was really heat that caused a storm glass to sigh and sway from one condition to another, then why couldn’t it be turned into a pendant? One that would react to the body heat of the wearer? I would make a storm glass - not one that predicted the passing of nature’s cold fronts, but one that signalled the tempests of the heart! A crystal that would melt in the heat of my girlfriend’s passions, and grow hard in the cooling of her mood. It would be easy, right?

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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 during World War II, Mona [...]

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 feasible way to improve it. [...]

Health Care Nutritional supplements and Personal Care for Each Individual’s Needs Despite the popularity of many drugstore and pricier skincare products, branded pharmaceutical dietary supplements and the like, many have turned “green” and are usually on a look for competent, cost-efficient personal care products and health care supplements that do the same as their commercialized [...]

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 the intention of derailing the [...]

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 be a pharma shill. There [...]