Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a strongly worded warming about a product knowns as “Miracle Mineral Solution” or MMS. Their guidance is simple – “Do not purchase or drink it”. This is the second warning they have issued. Why? It is not simply a scam run by a fraudster, but is a … Read more
Yet again the BBC has been publishing a warning to anybody who will listen about the Cup and Ball scam. It looks like a harmless bit of fun. Some guy has 3 cups on the ground and all you need to do is to bet on which one the ball is under after he has … Read more
Is the legal banning of quackery a Freedom of Speech issue? It seems like a question with an obvious answer. It is also of interest because it was recently tested by a federal court. The specific case concerned Nutritionist Heather Del Castillo. The whisper was that she practising without a license and so the state … Read more
Sometimes when something that is so improbable and outlandish happens we might be tempted to conclude that a supernatural event has taken place. “It can be the only explanation” we might think, because the odds of it actually happening by chance are simply too great for it to have been a coincidence. I have a … Read more
The “Moon Landing was a Hoax” claim is a very old trope these days, so much so, that it is a popular bit of cultural mythology. Are there really people who seriously embrace such conspiracy thinking? Very much indeed yes. To grasp that you need to remember that we live in a world where some … Read more
On this week’s episode of the “Skeptics Guide to the Universe” (Episode 730), they did a “Science or Fiction” quiz that was based upon Stiglers law. What is Stiglers law? University of Chicago statistics professor Stephen Stigler wrote a 1980 publication titled “Stigler’s law of eponymy“. Within this he states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. No … Read more