Sceptics choice

by webmaster on February 8, 2010

When I first heard about ten23 (which in case you don’t know was the mass suicide attempt using homeopathic products which took place recently – you can read Martin Robbins description of that event here http://bit.ly/cX9bTH) in relation to homeopathy, I thought that it might have been when homeopathy started up. I mean it would explain a lot if it had been with us through the ages. Imagine Harold at the battle of Hastings with an arrow stuck in his eye, and ye olde homeopathy surgeon standing pouring bottle after bottle of water into his eye socket to restore his vision.
I’m being deliberately facetious here but the question has occurred to me why homeopaths stop with just the curing of diseases that we still struggle to cure with conventional medicine. Why for instance did they not pump homeopathic remedies into JFK as he lay mortally wounded in a Dallas hospital? Because it wouldn’t have worked? Why then do they persist in pretending that remedies which have been diluted beyond the level where any possible active ingredient could be present can work? There’s no more evidence for that than there is to suggest that homeopathy can cure loss of life due to horrific gunshot wounds.
Is it something so shallow as mere profit? Hardly… (I am being understandably careful here because I have heard that the homeopathic associations are a little touchy on the subject – though perhaps they also have a remedy for paranoia!)
Homoepathy still tends to be a widely blogged and written on subject, and yet doesn’t seem to gather the same level of scepticism that, say, climate change does? Why? Answers on a postcard please…

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The science sceptic’s choice…

by webmaster on January 25, 2010

Isn’t it amazing what research gets hammered by the sceptics and what doesn’t?
Here’s a little test for you…
Two recent reports I read in The Guardian online: one about the risk of glaciers melting due to climate change or global warming http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/25/world-glacier-monitoring-service-figures; and one about how alien visitors would prove to have very human traits such as greed and a tendency to exploit others resources http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jan/25/aliens-space-earth-humans
Which one do you think the science sceptic will choose for their latest campaign?
Do you know what it is yet?
Well of course you do. Isn’t it obvious? The one that’ll be challenged by the sceptics is the climate change one. We know this not because it’s the logical answer, no. We know it because it’s not the first time that evidence based beliefs on climate change matters have been challenged.
Why, we must ask ourselves, is it that evidence based science very much of this planet will be challenged by sceptics, while the beliefs related to other ‘as yet unproven’ worlds will remain unchallenged?
Is it because we as yet don’t have any vested interests in the other worlds? Maybe we soon will: especially if we do find one that is capable of being messed up like this one; I mean capable of providing us with much needed resources which of course we only need because of what we’re doing to the one we started out on…
Answers on a postcard to Messrs. Obama, Brown, et al. c/o Location of next global summit on climate change, Earth, Milky Way, The Universe.

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At long last the new episode of Science Chat is done… I’m blaming the unseasonably bad weather which came right after the new year which meant that the holiday break was a little extended…
In this episode I talk to Professor Colin O’Dowd, Director of the Centre for Climate & Air Pollution Studies (C-CAPS) in the National University of Ireland (Galway) http://www.nuigalway.ie/c-caps/
The podcast itself can be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes.

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New Year’s Resolutions and all that…

by webmaster on December 31, 2009

“another year over, and a new one just begun” as John Lennon once sang, and for most of us along with the parties and the incredible hangovers that we’ll have tomorrow, there will be the inevitable resolutions.
Some write them down, some tell their friends and family, some keep them to themselves but are just as adamant that they will follow them or achieve them or whatever the particular resolution calls for.
This year, I decided yet again not to make any.
But if I had, I would have for the first time applied a little business/quality philosophy that the profit making world always applies to its business plans – I would have made sure that they were SMART.
For those of you that don’t recognise this acronym, this means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely… not often an acronym applied to life of course!
Specific – not ‘I will lose weight’; more ‘I will lose one stone (2.2 kg)’
Measurable – see above
Achievable – not ‘I will lose one stone’ if you aren’t going to change your lifestyle
Relevant – not ‘I will stop drinking’ if you only take one drink a year on New Year’s Eve
Timely – not ‘I will stop smoking’ instead ‘I will have stopped smoking completely by end of January by decreasing steadily over the first three weeks using replacement therapy and then quitting completely in week 4′
Actually I could have just used the last example for the entire thing, but one other thing I’ve put in there is the definition of the tasks to be completed in a kind of project timeline. This is the other component that successful businesses use of course, and it’s also analogous to the scientific process. Not many scientific research projects proceed without a plan which define the actual breakdown of tasks to be completed and when they are to be completed by.
It seems to me logical to do this for New Year’s resolutions too, but whatever way you do your resolutions, whether public or private, whether SMART or not, good luck to you all and Happy New Year…

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It’s life Jim, but not as we know it…

December 17, 2009

If like me, you believe in the evidence based story of the evolution of human life – all life starting with the Big Bang and so on, instead of the religion based story of one god and us human’s being created by him, then you’ll no doubt be interested in the story I picked up [...]

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Science Conflict – the row over climate change

December 10, 2009

A recent quote from an Irish Times article by Prof. William Reville http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2009/1210/1224260412971.html, regarding the conflict over climate change stated “The CRU affair at least calls for independent re-analysis of much of the data underpinning AGW”.
This highlights for me the issue which covers so much of reported scientific data. Even within the realm of peer [...]

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Science Chat Episode 7

December 10, 2009

The long awaited science comedy episode of Science Chat has arrived…
In it I talk to Brian Malow, science comedian. Brian can be found on his website http://www.sciencecomedian.com/blog, as well as on YouTube by searching for Science Comedian. He is also the aptly named @sciencecomedian on twitter.
The podcast itself can be found in the usual [...]

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Science Chat Episode 6

November 30, 2009

This episode of the Science Chat podcast wraps up on science education for a while – I still have a call in to the Irish government for comments from them and I am also sourcing some contributors in the US about the new initiative announced there, so I may come back to it at some [...]

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On science education… again…

November 24, 2009

A week ago, I posted a podcast episode about science education which discussed activities of interested amateurs as well as the activities of the Centre for Talented Youth in Dublin City University. Today I read in the New York Times about a campaign to improve science and mathematics education for children in the United States [...]

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On science advisors and the like…

November 17, 2009

Thinking about all the ’stuff’ going on in the UK about the sacking and resignations of science or drug advisors made me think of how this applies to Ireland. I’m not even aware that there are drugs advisors to the Irish government… it would explain a lot of what’s going on in this country if [...]

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