Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The term Yeti is a familiar one to most people. It describes the ape-like creature that supposedly dwells in the snow peaked Himalayas. For most this is simply a popular cultural myth, but some true believers do exist. Just to be clear … Quantity of actual scientific evidence that the Yeti is or was real … Read more
The full senate vote to appoint Kathleen Hartnett White to the position of head the Council on Environmental Quality is soon coming up. The committee vote yesterday (Nov 29th) has endorsed her, so it is just the full vote in the senate that remains. She is of course the ideal Trump environmental appointee – from her … Read more
The title is not a metaphor, this is a posting that is quite literally about Coffee. Be aware that it is a substance that I consume lots of on a regular basis, so I may indeed be a tad biased. The news is that a meta-analysis of many Coffee studies has declared it to be … Read more
Back in 1974, the famed physicist Richard Feynman gave a commencement speech at the California Institute of Technology in which the term “Cargo Cult Science” was popularised as a way of describing science that was not really science at all. What we appear to have now is the emergence of Cargo Cult Peer Review. It looks like peer … Read more
You are hopefully familiar with the #MeToo twitter tag. Just over a month ago it went viral as a very public grassroot shout to denounce sexual assault and harassment. It was triggered by the very public accusations against Harvey Weinstein. Literally million of people used it to come forward and so the scale of abuse and harassment … Read more
Previously the selection of my personal top three items of religious weirdness have perhaps been dominated by US religious weirdness each week. So what happens if I apply a US filter this week, will I be left bereft and find nothing to choose because the US has a monopoly on religious weirdness? In a word … Read more