“Imagine a medicine that has a staggering 75 per cent success rate in treating cancer, and yet is a natural and ethical product, owned by a nonprofit company headed by devout Catholics.” Well, yes, it does take a bit of imagining, not least because the …
Simon Singh The agents of counterknowledge are busy in the legal courts. The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) is bringing a libel claim against the eminent science writer Simon Singh. The libel case brought by the vitamin salesman Matthias Rath against The Guardian and Ben Goldacre …
Regular Counterknowledge readers will know that there is no shortage of charlatans ready to take money from people in dire straits. Whether they have money problems, anxieties about the future or a life-threatening illness, there will be someone around to profit from their ignorance. The …
The UK leads the way in festive boozing, various surveys have shown. Even more than the French, it is the British who drink most (per capita) during the Christmas season. But what follows, we all know, is not so much fun. On the first day …
Protesters have been taking to the streets of Glastonbury, Somerset, after their council installed free Wi-Fi masts in the centre of the town. The rural town, which has a population of 9,000, is most famous for its summer rock festival. Now, the residents fear that …
A 75-year-old hypnotherapist was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years imprisonment last Tuesday after being convicted of a series of sex assaults on young women and girls. Peter Knight is the second British hypnotherapist jailed since September, when Stephen Dyer was sentenced to five years for similar …
E equals Mariah Carey “times two”, according to Ms Carey Sense About Science, a charitable trust set up to promote to promote good science and evidence-based thinking to the public, has just published its Celebrities and Science 2008 report, naming and shaming those in the public eye …
This is the first in a series of posts by R.P. McMurphy, a team manager in a busy community mental health team, about the spread of counterknowledge in Britain’s National Health Service. The Mental Health Trust that I work for recently gained Foundation status. For …
Simon Singh One of the most vivid examples of a lack of intellectual accountability in broadcasting is the now-notorious “Alternative Medicine: The Evidence.” Broadcast on BBC2 in 2006, it suggested that patients could undergo heart surgery with no anaesthetic other than acupuncture. Thanks to the …
Prince Charles’ Duchy Originals is about to add herbal remedies to its line-up of expensive “organic” products. In partnership with Nelsons, a major homeopathic manufacturer, the creams, pills and tinctures will be sold by Boots and Waitrose, with profits going to The Prince’s Foundation. Charles has long been …