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Giving him the finger
May. 1st, 2008 11:17 pmYou may have seen stories about a man regrowing a finger due to a regenerative compound in the news and from various other sources. Some people, of course, are skeptical:
( Gruaniad: Regrown finger is 'junk science' )
( Gruaniad: Regrown finger is 'junk science' )
Beneath the cut, brought to my attention by Ben Goldacre's latest Bad Science blog entry, a video of a homeopathy lecture that is awe-inspiring in its stupidity and ignorance. I literally spent half of watching this yelling, "What the hell are you talking about?!?" and the other half slack-jawed in astonishment.
( Bad Science: The Stupid, It Burns )
( Bad Science: The Stupid, It Burns )
Hyperspace drive in five years?
Jan. 6th, 2006 07:37 amIn other news, snowballs don't melt in Hell.
My first thought was, "A magnetic field powerful enough to cause a spacecraft to slip into hyperspace? Better keep your credit cards at home."
( The Scotsman: Welcome to Mars express )
My first thought was, "A magnetic field powerful enough to cause a spacecraft to slip into hyperspace? Better keep your credit cards at home."
( The Scotsman: Welcome to Mars express )
Bad Science
Dec. 16th, 2004 11:29 pmIt occurs to me that maybe I should have tried doing a paper on fraudulent and crackpot science. I'm sure there's a good synthetic book out there examining the attitude towards dubious science and examining why people are dead set on giving credence to claims that collapse with a little poking - not to mention why in some cases reputable scientists don't even want to speak out when they have doubts - like the recent Mumps, Measles and Rubella scare in the UK shows. If there isn't a book out there, someone should write one.
(uh, not me... got enough worries about my actual thesis as it is)
But I digress. This is to point your attention to the Guardian 2004 Bad Science Awards, which include the "Andrew Wakefield prize for preposterous extrapolation from a single unconvincing piece of scientific data", which went to the Daily Express, for declaring that "recent research" has shown turmeric to be "highly protective against many forms of cancer, especially of the prostate" on the basis of lab studies on individual cells in dishes, but none on humans and "Award for outstanding innovation in the use of the title 'Doctor'" which went to the "nutritionist" Dr Gillian McKeith for her Ph.D. via a correspondence course from the Clayton College of Natural Health in Alabama, and her confident characterization of chlorophyll as being "high in oxygen".
The one that drew the biggest laugh from me (aside from the Space Tomato No. 1 from China - cosmically irradiated mutant vegetables... no, seriously, they send the seeds up in satellites, which seems an awful lot of trouble and expense when you can just stick 'em next to a burst of gamma rays) was "Least plausible cosmetics claim", which went to Bioionic for its process of Ionic Hair Retexturizing: "Water molecules are broken down to a fraction of their previous size ... diminutive enough to penetrate through the cuticle, and eventually into the core of each hair":
(uh, not me... got enough worries about my actual thesis as it is)
But I digress. This is to point your attention to the Guardian 2004 Bad Science Awards, which include the "Andrew Wakefield prize for preposterous extrapolation from a single unconvincing piece of scientific data", which went to the Daily Express, for declaring that "recent research" has shown turmeric to be "highly protective against many forms of cancer, especially of the prostate" on the basis of lab studies on individual cells in dishes, but none on humans and "Award for outstanding innovation in the use of the title 'Doctor'" which went to the "nutritionist" Dr Gillian McKeith for her Ph.D. via a correspondence course from the Clayton College of Natural Health in Alabama, and her confident characterization of chlorophyll as being "high in oxygen".
The one that drew the biggest laugh from me (aside from the Space Tomato No. 1 from China - cosmically irradiated mutant vegetables... no, seriously, they send the seeds up in satellites, which seems an awful lot of trouble and expense when you can just stick 'em next to a burst of gamma rays) was "Least plausible cosmetics claim", which went to Bioionic for its process of Ionic Hair Retexturizing: "Water molecules are broken down to a fraction of their previous size ... diminutive enough to penetrate through the cuticle, and eventually into the core of each hair":
Shrinking molecules caused some concern among the physicists at the ceremony, since IHR was available just 200 yards away, and the only other groups who have managed to create superdense quark-gluon plasma used a relativistic heavy ion collider. The prospect of such equipment being used by hairdressers was deemed worthy of further investigation.Back to grading.
