Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
I have seen the light, or to be a tad precise, everybody in the UK has been having a bit of a lack of a lightbulb moment. Back in 2007 the UK government announced that they would be phasing out sales of the classical incandescent bulbs with the aim that they would no longer be … Read more
I’ve come across a fascinating little site named “Review Skeptic”. There they explain … Review Skeptic is based on research at Cornell University that uses machine learning to identify fake hotel reviews with nearly 90% accuracy. So the idea here is that you can cut and paste any review in and then click “Test It”, and the … Read more
Lumosity, a San Francisco based company, has been promoting “Brain Training” that basically consists of games that are supposed to improve your memory, attention, flexibility, speed of processing, and problem solving abilities. It might indeed be popular and also quite profitable, but the ever so slight flaw is that they have been claiming stuff that is at best … Read more
In the age of google those that promote weird or bizarre claims are being challenged as never before because we no longer have to simply accept their word, we can look it up, and this is especially true of the Prosperity gospel. Justifying the Prosperity gospel As I’m sure you are aware, at least I hope … Read more
We live in a world that is awash with rather a lot of pseudoscientific claims that are pure grade one gold plated Bullshit, and so it is worth thinking about why some are very susceptible to such influences and others demonstrate a robust immunity to it all. A fascinating paper that yields some insights has been published within the journal Judgment … Read more
After being a non-profit for 127 years, the National Geographic magazine abandoned that status and got into bed with Rupert Murdoch. This all happened last September, and at the time was described as follows … Called National Geographic Partners, the new entity will combine the television channels with the magazine and other media, including National Geographic studios, related … Read more