Critical Thinking

Measles

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In the UK, the Thames Valley Health Protection Unit has issued a letter to the parents of every single child via the local Education Authorities because there has been an increasing number of cases of measles during 2011, especially among children. A similar rise has been observed in other countries in Europe, especially France, but also including Spain, Romania, Bulgaria and Germany. What has been happening is that folks have been away on vacation, and as a result their unimmunised children have been picking up measles, and then bringing it back.

In the US it is a similar story, they are on course to have its worst outbreak of measles in more than a decade. Travellers are catching the highly contagious illness while on vacation, then bringing it back to the U.S.

What is going on here?

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Trust Me, I’m a Scientist

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Great article in the latest Scientific American by Daniel T. Willingham. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?”. His article discusses why so many people choose not to believe what scientists say, so is of direct interest to skeptics.

A friend of mine has long held that a vaccination his son received as an infant triggered his child’s autism. He clings to this belief despite a string of scientific studies that show no link between autism and vaccines. When the original paper on such a link was recently discredited as a fraud, my friend’s reaction was that it will now be more difficult to persuade people of the dangers of vaccination. He is not alone: nearly half of all Americans believe in the vaccine-autism link or are unsure about it.

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Vitamin supplements: good for health or a waste of $$

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We, that’s the collective we, buy an astonishing quantity of Vitamin supplements each year. To give you an idea, here are some numbers (Sorry I only quote UK stats here, but you can probably extrapolate from that for other locations):

  • In the UK we spend about £364 million each year on Vitamin and mineral supplements
  • Approx 43% pop these supposed wonder drugs, but as you might expect, its the 55+ folks who are the biggest consumers

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Bottled Water – Healthy or a con job?

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For some reason, water appears to draw a lot of woo these days. The prime example is of course the concept of bottled water. Despite having the stuff on tap, we now have a thriving industry worth about $60 Billion per year; we are awash with brands that promise us both spring water and also purified healthier tap water. In fact, this entire industry is described as  the great con of the century here where it says within a UK Independent newspaper report …

Bottled water is “one of the greatest cons of the 20th century”, due to it being “vastly overpriced” with little to “differentiate it from tap water” according to water companies.

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The “Arguing from Authority” fallacy

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I suspect that perhaps most are familiar with the fallacy of arguing from authority, but just in case not, then in essence, this is the basis for it.

A claim is correct because the claim has been made by somebody who is authoritative.

OK, if it is a well known fallacy, then why write about it? Well, I’d like to take a look at three real-world examples to illustrate that there are multiple variations of this, and that no variation is an exception. This includes:

  • Fake Credentials – A supposed expert making claims, but their Ph.D. is fake
  • Out-Of-Context Credentials – A supposed expert making claims, but the subject of their degree has nothing to do with the claim
  • Real Credentials, but a bullshit claim – An true expert, with a real claim, but no actual evidence for the claim

So lets take a look at each of these it turn.

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Magical ley lines – debunked

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ley linesAre you familiar with the concept of a ley lines?

These are apparently special magical lines that run between ancient archaeological sites or monuments. If like me, you grew up devouring all the mystical books doing the rounds such as “Chariot of the Gods” by Erich Von Daniken, or “The Third Eye” by Lobsang T Rampa, then you will have no doubt come across the claim at some point. In fact, I’d be astonished if you had not heard of them, the idea has more or less embedded itself as a cultural meme these days.

Where did the Ley Lines idea originally come from?

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