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About
This blog is about science and science journalism: good, bad, and bogus. While most of the posts are about bad and bogus science and science writing, I try to find the time to reflect on good examples too.
I am a freelance science writer and I teach philosophy at the University of Sydney.
You can read more about the blog and me here.
Research Blogging Awards 2010 Finalist
Oh, and there’s another good post by Goldacre here.
“It is true that the baroness has the knack albrechtson speaks of. Another, less polite way of explaining this ability is ‘…abusing her position…to give weight to her speculations and prejudices in a way that is entirely inappropriate.’”
Ha! Brilliant! Methinks this blog announces to the world the arrival of some new freaking awesome public intellectual.
I look forward to reading more good, bad and bogus. Particularly bogus.
The other day my friend came to me and said “Hey, do you know Mars will be the size of the moon tonight”. This person studies aerospace engineering. They had read it on a popular science blog written in Arabic.
This might be the first case of a spam text message becoming a science story.
That’s great! Let me know if you remember what the popular science blog was.
This is a test comment. I’m just testing out the new WYSIWYG comment editing system. Pretty cool, huh?
Right justified text.
A forumula and some bold, italic and underline.
Unspeakably awesome. Ah!
I would have thought that the sample size ( heheh) that the women in the survey had from their own experience was too small (heheh) . Admittedly I haven’t looked at the actual study but I think women were asked if longer penises gave them vaginal orgasms.
How do they know if a penis is longer than average? Surely by definition most penises they have had would be around average.
Also I’d assume since penises aren’t all that big anyway, despite what most men think, that deciding if one was bigger or smaller or average would require a reasonably objective actual measurement with say (warm) calipers.
Might it be that the causality is the other way around – women think men with with whom they have good orgasms must have big penises.
For a start I’d be keen to see a control group of women who say they have never had a vaginal orgasm and then get them to seek out a long penis and see what happens.
And what about women who (allege) they have vaginal orgasms with any penis at all?
Yeah, the study had the usual problems with self-reporting — which may be more sever on topics like this. They tried to overcome some of the problems you mentioned. For example, they were given a local bill and told that was the average length of a penis.
The experts I spoke to for the story said that they would be very surprised if the results regarding length were accurate since even if that did make some difference, it would be dwarfed by other factors like rigidity, girth, technique etc.
I bet history would have something to say about this! Certainly the pop-history I’ve picked up from TV suggests public imagination just isn’t as fascinated by science as it used to be. We seemingly wouldn’t have the motivation to fund something like the moon landing in this day and age (also, lack of Cold War space race is a downer). And with no moon landing-eque events, we are trapped in a cycle of uninspired, world-weary realism. Playing on our ubiquitous iPhones and tiny computers and whatnot.
I think the large hadron collider was maybe a brief moment where broad public interest in pure science was rekindled? You know, until it died…
PS Nice article!
Yeah, I think that has something to do with it but I’m not sure that explains it completely. There’s a couple of other possibilities…
One issue is the fact that cutting edge physics today is just more complicated than in was 40 years ago. It’s harder to explain what we understand today about, say, the model of an atom than it was back then.
Also, I think maybe people are more skeptical about the claims of science. People had hopes that science would solve all our problems quite quickly (as you can see in the comic) but not only did it not do so, some uses of technology have created new problems.
But yes. Without the moon missions, I think it’s a bit harder to capture the public’s imagination.
Time to walk on Mars.
Maybe. Except for that moon missions were a massive waste of money and a Mars mission would be even more so. I reckon the papers should just print something like Frontiers again and since the science so cool, people will become interested.
My question is, “Are today’s scientists, who have believed for the last 300 years that mass mediates the gravitational force, any different from from the Scholastics believed in the Ptolemaic geocentric theory for a 1000 years? I believe they are the same because if people act on an erroneous belief for years they will hardly think about the validity of that belief. You could not tell the Scholastics that there was something wrong with their premises and you cannot tell today’s scientists that there is something wrong with this notion that mass has some mysterious power to either attract mass or warp space. They will not know what you are talking about. They will just think about something tangential to your questioning of the soundness of the premise that mass is the mediator of the gravitational force.
The mass-luminosity relation tells us that there is a high correlation among main sequence stars between a star’s mass and its luminosity. For five experiments demonstrating that the transfer of heat from a source of luminosity is gravitationally attractive and a gravitational theory based on the attractive effects of heat transfer go to http://vixra.org/abs/0907.0018 .
Also… Watching this video again reminds me: what the hell IS the force that binds neutrons and protons? I’m going to look this up.
Here’s a link to the paper’s abstract: (pdf).
Oh my god that is incredible! Great post
This is how Murdoch grooms his prey.
This should call into question his ability to represent the public. You would think a basic understanding of science would be compulsory for someone in his position.
Great article.
Yes, I agree Terry. Indeed, they don’t even need an understanding of science but merely the willingness to make judgments based on reason rather than self-interest.
Here’s an even better video. It’s been updated with a commentary explaining how it happens and what it looks like from different perspectives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx8i5EfmYU4
Please read my balloon inside balloon theory and theory of gravitoethertons in DOC.6198
3. Our primary message today is a special kind of offering, but first we shall address the question in many minds: What was that phenomenal appearance in
the skies over Norway? I asked my mother to copy what I told her in reply to
Jean Hudon’s immediate query [www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com]:
“Matthew says this is the most profound sign yet from our brothers and sisters in other civilizations that the time is nearing for their presence to be properly acknowledged—there is no way that those who do not want that to happen can explain away this dramatic sign. The overall spiral represents the unbroken interconnectedness of all souls from our Beginnings in the light—the intense light at the center—and the blue spiral aimed at Earth is the most forceful evidence to date of their desire for us to consciously connect with them in the same spirit they have come. The timing and location are significant, selected to mark the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Obama for his vision and dedication to achieving world peace and to indicate that they are here to assist us reach this goal.”
From : http://www.matthewbooks.com/mattsmessage.htm
Wow. That’s beyond crazy pseudoscience. Its interesting that the above craziness is associated with thinking Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. I guess you have to be crazy to believe either thing.
PS. The lights were a rocket spinning out of control. See this post.
Money could buy me happiness. I want just enough so that I don’t have to struggle. At the very least I could stop being unhappy. Any rich patrons want to help me out with that?
Good luck finding such a patron Mitch! Shoot them my way if you do!
If they pay me, I can blog fulltime and stop working!
Just to bring some balance to the table I’m willing to test the contrary position – that wealth will not bring me happiness.
This is a great thought. I am sure there are many good benefits in quitting smoking. Quit Smoking
The problem with the numbers is that they don’t come from a prospective randomised trial, but are retrospective observational data, with all the biases and variables that this entails.
My impression was that there were very few home births where the location of birth was a factor in an adverse outome. I’m not a statistician but it seemed that the small numbers of serious problems meant that any estimates had wide confidence intervals and therefore claiming that something was ‘27 times more likely’ to happen doesn’t appear to be very accurate.
Yeah – that sounds right. So perhaps the study doesn’t tell us much at all.
However, Sweet seems to think that if we take into account the wide confidence interval, babies are at least 1.5 times more likely to die during labour and possible 36 times. So, while the claim of “27 times more likely” is inaccurate, “at least 1.5 times more likely” might be right.
But I’m rough on my statistics too, so I’m just going on what Sweet says.
Here’s a really helpful follow up by Melissa Sweet on the Crikey blog “Croakey”. It includes some details about the numbers involved other problems with the study.
Thanks to Jesse for pointing out this piece of research. It looks like there is actually some research interest in the suggestion that Omega-3 fatty acids have an antidepressant effect. More research is needed to show a causal link but a number of studies show a significant correlation between low levels of seafood consumption and several mood disorders.
Might modify the statement about antidepressants and placebos by pointing out that the issue is with mild depression (as I’d expect any fish oil studies might be). That antidepressants can be effective for major depression is not controversial.
There’s also the question of whether fish oil would be as effective a placebo as anti-depressants, ie. people might be less likely to believe fish oil will work as opposed to anti-depressants?
Yeah – that’s certainly a consideration. But I recall seeing somewhere that nearly 80% of patients in placebo studies guess correctly whether they are on the real drug or the placebo. So it’s an interesting question how *much* hope you need for the placebo effect to be significant.
I think much of the confusion here rests upon a (very common) mereological fallacy. To talk about brains being conscious or unconscious makes about as much (or as little) sense as talking about hepatic decision making processes in the lobes of my liver. A very good (and sadly neglected) paper on this topic is Jeff Coulters’ (1979) The Brain as Agent, Human Studies. Vol 2(1)
Richard – I think you’re absolutely right! I’ll have to check out that paper.
But to be fair to the other side, when we elicit responses from people (eg. people in a vegetative state), there might, in some cases, be questions as to whether those responses are conscious or involuntary. If the latter, it seems to make sense to say that they are unconscious responses of the brain. Perhaps asking that question is not making the mistake of attributing consciousness (or unconsciousness) to brains.
The type of cases that Ken is referring to seem to be borderline cases of this sort. You know, where someone’s hemispheres are severed and you expose to one eye a card saying “leave the room”. When they leave the room but are unable to explain why (or confabulate) it seems coherent to ask whether that was a conscious decision or not.
And thanks for putting me onto Ken’s blog which I very much enjoy.
Richard, that sounds quite an obscure paper. Is there a scanned copy of it anywhere? Couldn’t find it on JSTOR. Thanks for mentioning it.
Certainly it depends on the responses to the questions – that is surely enough to say whether or not “that’s the sort of response Mrs X gave [or would have given] before going into a coma”. If one can say this, and we’re still going to doubt whether Mrs X is conscious or not, then why not (to me, absurdly) doubt whether she (and everyone else) was ever conscious.
The rest is just a question of method: i.e., what sorts of questions are asked, how many are asked, how many options (in multiple choice style) are there to choose from, is she unassisted? Etc. One could still reasonably have doubts about Mrs X being conscious if, say, the response-options where binary (yes or no). For a large bank of questions, a machine will get 50% of them right. For a small bank – say, 6 questions – getting 83% right is not ‘out of bounds’. If, however, even for a small bank of questions, where there were 10 options to choose from for each question so there was only a 10% chance of fluking it, one would start to feel more confident. The questions need not be about the patients life either. E.g.,
Question: What did you think of the movie ‘Avatar’?
a) I liked it.
b) I hated it.
c) Strawberry jam.
d) It was seriously deficient in character development.
e) I am opposed to blue people, so draw your own conclusions about that.
f) ….
g) ….
h) ….
i) I’ve been in a coma for the last 5 years you idiot, so how could I possibly have seen it? What – you think I dragged myself down to the cinema on Saturday afternoon? How would I get in? I don’t have any money on me. Hell, there aren’t even pockets in this stupid gown they make me wear.
There’s no doubt that some anti-depressants can alter brain chemistry. For some individuals where a chemical imbalance is the cause there may be a place for anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medications. Individuals should have an omega 3 screening done to investigate if there is a need for supplementation of omega 3’s through the use of fish oils. These subgroups of patients may respond positively to adding fish oils to their diet. Of course, there is also the problem of determining the appropriate dose that would bring their omega 3 levels to a more normal level.
to all those who dont believe, i have tried the powerbalance and stand by everything that they do. i was very skeptical at first as all should be however i also have an open mind and dont go bad mouthing something before trying it for myself unlike the publisher of this article who without any knowledge what so ever bar his own opinion has done so. Just the fact that you have know idea about the technology let alone the FACT that the body does has an emf (electromagnetic field) and that this emf can be affected by many outside forces just promotes the fact that you are an uneducated dim wit! go try it for yourself then come back and enlighten us with you all so factual rhetoric.
Great article Michael.
What struck me first and foremost was that the report was purely about young people. I think many folks comprehend that smoking dope is probably not healthy for under 21 year olds and the issue is not in contention. The major issue is whether cannabis in moderation is relatively harmless for adults who don’t have a negative reaction to it’s effects. The report does not answer this vital question or even really address it. And that’s the point … it wasn’t about adult cannabis use.
Most of the trash media didn’t distinguish between the two age groups whilst some of the more credible news bureaux did. It seems the bulk of the media are still content to push drug hysteria and moral panic when possible. No wonder the issue is still contentious to the public when their major source of information is the MSM.
That’s a good point. It seems like what evidence there is for a link between cannabis and psychosis is all about young people.
Alex Wodak made some predictably sensible comments on the issue. In Australian Doctor magazine, he made the following comments.
“Dr Alex Wodak, director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, said policies regarding cannabis should be based on the assumption that it caused psychosis, even though the absolute risk was very small. However, the contribution that alcohol and amphetamines made to mental illness ‘dwarfs any contribution that cannabis might make’.”