Fresh off the heels of promoting counterknowledge themselves, the Daily Telegraph today lambasted celebrities for “promoting fads” (i.e., counterknowledge). Their condemnation followed a report by the charity Sense About Science, who are concerned that “public figures may confuse people with endorsements for products or theories based on poor understanding of …
Steve Fuller, a professor of the sociology of science at Warwick University, has written a postmodern defence of Intelligent Design, entitled Science v. Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution. And here is a thrillingly savage review of it in eSkeptic magazine by Norman …
Here is my review of a “history” book that appeared, in modified form, in the Sunday Telegraph magazine yesterday. Here is the unexpurgated version. The Secret History of the World by Jonathan Black, Quercus £25 by Damian Thompson The Secret History of the World is, …
Congratulations to Ben Goldacre for a terrific onslaught on homeopathy in the Guardian. There must be tens of thousands of Guardian readers who dabble in this 200-year-old witchcraft; perhaps Ben will finally succeed in penetrating what the Catholic Church (itself no stranger to counterknowledge) used …
As if Dan Brown’s senseless imaginings weren’t enough, a crackpot Italian musician has recently announced his discovery of ‘musical notes encoded in Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper‘. “It sounds like a requiem,” says 45-year-old Giovanni Maria Pala. “It’s like a soundtrack that emphasizes the passion …
The BBC recently ran an item about a treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) called Lightwave Stimulation (LWS). Show a SAD sufferer the right colours, and hormones are triggered that promote happiness. Does that sound like bollocks to you? The author of a sceptical blog called …
Here’s a gem of a quote from a master of medical counterknowledge. “I’m not sure how much credibility these pointy-heads have,” says Dr Michael Dixon, trustee of The Prince of Wales’s Foundation for Integrated Medicine, quoted in today’s Daily Telegraph guide to “top health gurus”. …
I just got my hands on a Clarus Transphase Scientific Q-Link. Our favourite “doctor”, Patrick Holford, used to sell these things for seventy quid. Ben Goldacre has summarised the product superbly before, but here are a few choice quotes from the enclosed leaflet you might …
An Oxford graduate once told me, in a conversation about the historical hostility between Afrikaaners and the English, that the biggest cause was Britain’s use of concentration camps in the Boer War “which killed six million people”. Fact, as David Brent might say. Quack history …
The New York-based Oxonian Society – founded by Oxford graduates to foster lively debate – is helping to promote Deepak Chopra MD, the New Age guru whose pseudoscience is utterly incompatible with the intellectual traditions of Oxford University. The society has just offered me a …