Posts Tagged Pseudoscience
Evidence Check Evidence Check (or; What The Papers Say)
Posted by Mike in 10:23, Government, Homeopathy, Pseudomedicine, Public Health on December 7th, 2009
Over the last couple of weeks, the Commons Committee on Science and Technology held a couple of their “evidence check” sessions, looking at homeopathy. Sessions such as this are held to examine whether there is evidence to support government policy.
The oral hearings take the form of witnesses with relevant backgrounds being quizzed by committee members. Witnesses for the first of these sessions included the legendary Ben Goldacre, Edzard Ernst from the University of Exeter, and Tracey Brown from the charity Sense About Science. Speakers in favour of homeopathy included Paul Bennett from Boots, Peter Fisher from the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, and Robert Wilson from the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers.
The big thing that came out of this hearing, from a rhetorical point of view, was the admission by Paul Bennett that Boots did not believe homeopathy to be effective – but they sell it anyway because of consumer demand. This lead to us here at Merseyside Skeptics drafting An Open Letter to Alliance Boots, calling upon them to withdraw the product. If you haven’t done so already, or even if you have, please check out the letter. Digg it, tweet it, repost it, write about it. Help up make some noise!
Ahem.
The pro-homeopathy witnesses, when challenged, mentioned a number of studies which they claimed supported the idea that homeopathy has strong effects beyond placebo. So I thought I’d look up a few of the studies mentioned and see what those studies actually say.
‘Psychic Detective’ Joe Power Rides Again (And He’s Still Not Psychic, And Still Not A Detective)
Posted by Marsh in Joe Power, Media, Pseudoscience, Psychics, Skepticism on December 2nd, 2009
Last week I wrote about the Dyfed-Powys Police force and their investigation into the death of Carlos Assaf - an investigation which saw them spend £20k following up supposed tips from a so-called psychic. The affair, as well as causing outrage throughout the country, sparked something of a debate on the use of psychics within police investigations, which then played out across the various news outlets after the BBC’s Donal McIntyre investigated the claims of one particular medium – psychic detective (although not psychic and not a detective) Joe Power.
Regular readers, and regular listeners of me on various podcasts or just ranting tipsily in a pub in fact, will be familiar with Joe Power – he was the Liverpudlian supposed-psychic I met at a book signing way back in June. The meeting, as I’ve spoken about before, was somewhat surreal in it’s content – especially when Joe decided to go on a random and pretty vehement rant whereby he likened skeptics (and specifically my good self) to paedophiles. He’s wrong of course, which I guess shows in that particular case his psychic powers were proven to be bullshit. It was actually that very conversation that led to my becoming a host of a podcast, so I suppose I should thank Joe for that. Cheers, Joe. If anyone wants to read a full account of the encounter, they can check it out elsewhere on the blog – or simply Google Joe Power’s name followed by the word ’skeptic’ or ‘paedophile’ (I’ll let you guys choose which, but I know which I’d prefer. There’s something satisfying about the idea of a load of people typing ‘Joe Power Paedophile’ into Google. A GoogleBomb, I think it’s called…) Indeed typing ‘Joe Power’ into Google is a pretty popular way of finding this site – looking at the key words for accessing it, Joe-related phrases come in both 3rd and 5th. So again, cheers Joe.
So, with Joe proving himself to be a distasteful, angry and pretty disgusting man on a personal level (ask him anything about his powers and you’ll see what I mean), it’s a real surprise and a real shame the BBC and other news outlets took him fully at his word on his ability to solve crimes. Read the rest of this entry »
Woo Or No Woo
Posted by Marsh in Media, Pseudoscience, Skepticism, Superstition on December 1st, 2009
MSS Skeptics in the Pub regular and professional gambler AJ drops in to offer his take on superstition and gameshows…
Noel Edmonds. Love him or hate him, or dream about setting about him with a claw hammer; one thing you can’t deny is that he has a beard. An immaculate beard. Let’s be honest, it’s a prize-winner. As could you be if you were to appear on his daily quiz show woo spectacular that is Deal or No Deal.
The format is probably familiar to a lot of people by now – the game starts with twenty two contestants, each with a sealed box in front of them containing an amount ranging between 1p and £250,000 that is unknown to them, or indeed anyone bar the independent adjudicator. Each box is clearly numbered on its exterior from 1 to 22 to identify them. A contestant is chosen to start the game, they bring their box to the front of the stage, give a synopsis of their life story to Noel, who nods and emotes in all the right places and then its seatbelts on and we’re off. Read the rest of this entry »
Psychic Healing? My Dog’s Arse!
Posted by Marsh in Media, Pseudomedicine, Skepticism on November 29th, 2009
The Heart-Shaped Dog Patch. Apparently
Sometimes you come across a story so wildy, stupendously, Earth-shatteringly stupid you wonder what actually passes for journalism in the modern media. I tend to have at least three of those moments a week. But this latest is a real humdinger. I’ll give it to you slow:
“MYSTIFIED medics are trying to get to the bottom of how a dog saved her owner from a heart attack – with her rear end” – Source: The Sunday Express
Already, I can tell you’re interested. The ‘doctors-baffled’ angle is always a winner; the ‘dog saves owner’ format is tried and tested; and then pow! – dog’s arse. Right there, sentence one. If any one of you saw that coming, you should get on the phone to Randi immediately.
To continue:
Stricken Piotr Wagner, 50, collapsed with agonising chest pains as he watched telly at home in Kazimierza Biskupiego, Poland. But when his pooch Pearl – a two-year-old Jack Russell cross – turned a heart-shaped patch on her flanks towards her master, he told doctors he felt the pain melt away.
Medics are baffled by the dog’s apparent healing powers, as reported by the Austrian Times. ”He certainly had a heart attack but it seems to have suddenly stopped and he is now healthy and back to normal,” said one.
Piotr said: “I want everyone to know about my big-hearted dog.”
Now, this story is quite clearly ridiculous, so I won’t waste your time with a full, wordy, lengthy debunk. Suffice it so say there’s a couple of reasons this is a) utter nonsense and b) completely un-newsworthy Read the rest of this entry »
Comas And Communications
Posted by Marsh in Facilitated Communication, Pseudoscience, Skepticism on November 25th, 2009
When Belgian Rom Houden was left in a coma following a car accident in 1983, his family feared he’d never come back from it. Little did they know, throughout his 23 years existing in what was thought to be a vegetative state, Rom was actually fully conscious and suffering from a condition known as ‘locked-in syndrome’ – where the sufferer is completely paralysed but otherwise mentally sound. In a report which has garnered international interest, Rom has been shown having learnt to communicate by typing on a keyboard with one finger, while his hand is held and supported and moved around by his helper.
Or so the report tells us.
Upon closer inspection, it seems the miraculous breakthrough might not be so amazing at all – a fact which James Randi picked up for the JREF site in a post he titled ‘This Cruel Farce Has To Stop‘. Having studied the video evidence, Randi is convinced Rom’s communications mount to little more than standard ‘facilitated communications‘ – in essence, that his helper is in fact the one doing the typing, and poor Rom is merely a helpless puppet. Read the rest of this entry »
Handwringing Over Handwriting In The BBC
Posted by Marsh in Graphology, Pseudoscience, cold-reading on November 17th, 2009
This week the BBC reported on the condolence letter written by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to the mother of a fallen soldier. Labelling a spelling mistake in the note as ‘disrespectful’, the BBC then decided on report on other inferences the note could betray about the PM’s mental state.
But what does Mr Brown’s handwriting style, and those of other prime ministers, betray about their state of mind?
That’s right – we’re on that little known nonsense that is Graphology – with the BBC running the letter by Elaine Quigley, former head of the British Institute of Graphologists. In case you’re not familiar with it, graphology is the pseudoscience of examining handwriting – size, shape, slant, angularity, form of the letters and more – and using the analysis to gain insights into the personality and mindset of the writer. Which doesn’t work. But why let that stop a good feature? Read the rest of this entry »
