Skepticism
pharyngula | April 26, 2011Steve Novella is going to appear on the Dr Oz show today, and that promo has convinced me that Oz is an unforgivable charlatan. I'm swamped with work — we're into the final two weeks of classes — so I don't think I'll be able to tune in, but any of you who do…report back! I'm sure Novella will acquit himself well, but it really looks like flaming woo central.
aardvarchaeology | April 24, 2011The other day I overheard a cringeworthy conversation between two 70ish ladies of the New Age persuasion. They were talking about how a great change is imminent in our society, as heralded by the unusually many catastrophes taking place (huh?), and by the 2011 end of the Mayan calendar, "or was it 2012?", the Maya being of course the people who built Macchu Picchu (nope). The ladies seemed to think that the change, though scary, would be a good one. And then I remembered what the term "New Age" actually means. I just had to sing a line from the musical Hair to them:
"This is the dawning of…
pharyngula | April 21, 2011The New York Times has a long profile of Andrew Wakefield. It's not at all laudatory (read the last paragraph in particular), but it does include quotes from people who regard Wakefield as a hero…and even something more.
"To our community, Andrew Wakefield is Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one," says J. B. Handley, co-founder of Generation Rescue, a group that disputes vaccine safety. "He's a symbol of how all of us feel."
Handley, of course, is a certifiable kook and an awful excuse for a human being. I am amused that he sees Wakefield as a Jesus, though; there doesn't seem…
pharyngula | April 21, 2011The world is full of people selling products that are nothing but advertising, like those silly "power balance" bracelets that do not give you either power or balance. Add another one to the list: Real Water. Did you know that going through a pipe strips water of its electrons? That lots of the foods we eat are lacking electrons? Well, Real Water is good for you because it adds extra electrons! The Guardian has an excellent take-down of their claims.
Now the real question is whether an expose by some science nerd will outweigh celebrity endorsements by Paul Oakenfold, Melanie Brown, and Chad…
pharyngula | April 20, 2011I'm really interested in DNA and genes and genetics, so I was of course attracted to this website that explains a lot of secret information about DNA. Did you know that all the problems in your life are caused by a misaligned DNA code? The author of this site, Tom OM, is a German chiropractor, and I guess it's a short jump from cracking spines to aligning DNA, because he promises to fix everything in your life just by activating your DNA, whatever that means.
That site is just a teaser, though. You have to give them your name and email address, and then you get to read his seven part…
pharyngula | April 17, 2011The American Journal of Surgery has published a transcript of a presidential address titled, "Can prayer help surgery?", and my first thought was that that was absolutely brilliant — some guy was roped into giving a big speech at a convention, and he picked a topic where he could stand up, say "NO," and sit back down again. If he wanted to wax eloquent, maybe he could add a "Don't be silly" to his one word address.
But a reader sent me a copy of this paper, and I was wrong. The author spent four pages saying "Yes". It flies off to cloud cuckoo land in the very first sentence, which compares…
pharyngula | April 15, 2011I can tell. It's coming. A royal heir has gotten engaged to some young woman, and there will be one of those royal weddings, and the sentimental argle-bargle in the British media will soar to new heights of fatuousness. I'll miss most of it, fortunately, but I pity everyone in the United Kingdom who's going to have to suffer with the royal romanticism for a while.
At least this time the Telegraph has set the bar for stupidity abysmally low, and I have no idea how anyone else willl sink lower (the fun will be in the trying, I'm sure). Someone has found a jelly bean that looks like Kate…
tsmith | April 11, 2011We all know of once-respected scientists who ended up going off the deep end, adhering to an unproven idea despite massive evidence to the contrary. Linus Pauling and his advocacy of megadoses of Vitamin C, or Peter Duesberg's descent into HIV denial. It's all the more disappointing when the one taking a dive is a woman, since there are, compared to men, relatively fewer female "big names" in the sciences. So when one goes from views that were, perhaps, outside of the mainstream (but later proven largely correct) to complete science denialism, it makes it all the more depressing. Even worse,…
aardvarchaeology | April 11, 2011
So Friday morning, we swam in the hotel pool after breakfast. Then we went into town and had lunch with Heather Flowers at the Acadia café, whereupon I gave a well-attended lunch talk about my Bronze Age project to staff and students at the U Minn Anthropology Department. Good to reconnect with Prof. Peter Wells, and I received a tea mug! I've already put it to good use as everything on our hotel's breakfast buffet, plates cups cutlery packaging, is disposable. (We're re-using our table gear day after day.)
Heather then took us on a road trip to Swedish immigrant country around Lindstrom…
aardvarchaeology | April 10, 2011Journalist Geoffrey York has dug deeper for the Globe and Mail into the story about alleged descendants of Medieval Chinese sailors on the coast of Kenya that I wrote about once in '07. He finds that not even the locals, who supposedly tell "legends" about their Chinese ancestry, believe any of it or indeed know of any such legends prior to the recent foreign involvement. He quotes me, but it's a good piece anyway.
pharyngula | April 8, 2011You are required to watch Tim Minchin's excellent short animated movie.
Enough said.
pharyngula | April 6, 2011I have an excuse to visit Philadelphia this May: I'll be attending the Friggatriskaidekaphobia party that Margaret Downey will be putting on on Friday, the 13th of May, along with Tom Flynn.
Meet Tom Flynn, along with PZ Myers, at the Freethought Society (FS)'s 2011 Anti-Superstition Bashon Friday, May 13, 2011 from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM in the beautiful Corinthian Yacht Club on 300 West 2nd Street, Essington, PA (just minutes from the Philadelphia Airport). FS will host a "Friggatriskaidekaphobia Treatment Center," which will be equipped to assist party attendees in getting over all their…
aardvarchaeology | April 2, 2011I joined the Swedish Skeptics Society in 1997. Not because I was particularly aware of or bothered by paranormal claims or alternative medicine, but because I was an unhappy grad student in an Artsy post-modernist environment that was extremely hostile to the idea of cumulative rationalist Enlightenment science. It was a huge relief for me to come into contact with science and engineering people with an unabashedly scientistic world view. They would happily say "There's no data on that issue so its useless to speculate about it" and "Both interpretation A and interpretation B can't be true",…
aardvarchaeology | March 31, 2011I've got a lot of fun stuff going on right now. Yesterday I drove to Uppsala, talked to the County Archaeologist about a site for almost two hours on an empty stomach, was fed cake by my friend and colleague Ãsa of Ting & Tankar, spoke about Bronze Age sacrificial sites to her staff at the SAU excavation unit, was treated to dinner by Ãsa and my old buddy Jonas, drove to Norrtälje, ran into the local history society's meeting a quarter late and gave the Bronze Age talk one more time. Then drove home and spent half an hour before bedtime getting paperwork into shape as per the County…
pharyngula | March 29, 2011I'm giving you advanced warning: the awesome science fiction convention, CONvergence, will be taking place in Bloomington, Minnesota on 30 June-3 July. You should go. Really. It will be fun, and I'm always telling atheist activists to go to a few science fiction conventions — they have mastered the art of being inclusive, interesting, diverse, and interactive. Even if you aren't an SF fan, go to one and study the mechanics, they work.
CONvergence has another distinction, in that the Skepchicks have attached themselves leechlike to the larger con to run a skeptics' track. So yes, you should go…
pharyngula | March 28, 2011What is it with these stupid, cheap silicone wrist bands? It seems every scam artist in the country is selling these things along with claims that they have amazing magical powers, and people must be buying them. Here's a promotional video for Energy Armor — "NEGATIVE IONS!"
This is their explanation for how these are supposed to work. I think. Somehow, a little honesty slipped into the middle of the fairy tale.
The Energy Armor wristband has taken these good ions, which are known as "negative ions", and have found a way to infuse them into a durable silicone band. There is no secret…
pharyngula | March 20, 2011That's the message the despicable John Edward and Dr Oz tried to give in a recent television program. I knew Edward was beneath contempt, but I've never watched Oz and had only heard second-hand that he was a woo-meister…but this show confirms it. Even worse, Oz brought in a critic, Katherine Nordal, to assess Edward's psychic readings, and she has since complained about what the show did with her commentary.
In a letter to producers of "The Dr. Oz" show Nordal said, "I provided very balanced responses to Dr. Oz's questions during the show's taping, however, the editing of my responses did…
gregladen | March 15, 2011I honestly think that it is too early to have this conversation, but alas, the conversation has been forced.
I have yet to express my opinion about the efficacy or safety of the future use of nuclear power, or any way in which that opinion may be affected by the current tragic events in Japan. I did report (link to, really) with little comment on the current failings of the Fukushima nuclear plants (very much underway at this time), and when commenters took the opportunity to explain how nuclear power is totally safe and that this was demonstrated by how nicely things are working out at…
pharyngula | March 14, 2011Holy crap, have you seen the line up for The Amaz!ng Meeting? Everyone is going to be there, except maybe the Chinese army and a forgotten marching band in Lithuania. How are they going to schedule this monster? How many people are they going to have attend…or are they all signed up to present talks?
I know DJ told me I was supposed to give a talk, but I may only get 10 minutes on the stage at this rate. The theme this year is "TAM 9 From Outer Space", and they're going to focus on space science and skepticism, with a whole throng of astrophycist/astronomers getting top billing. It's a good…
aardvarchaeology | March 14, 2011Juniorette is a precocious seven years old. Here's her rendition of Leonard Cohen's 1984 song "Hallelujah", with the Swedish lyrics by Py Bäckman. The performance is influenced to a certain degree by another young Swedish singer's version, Molly Sandén's on her 2009 album Samma himmel.
While Cohen's beautiful lyrics deal mainly with broken love affairs through biblical allusions (compare the Pixies' "Dead" and "Gouge Away"!), Bäckman's lyrics are a bit too churchy for my taste. "[The song] has something that takes hold of you / And leads you from night to day / And suddenly you want to…