Sense about Science is maintaining reliable information about detoxication claims including a short leaflet and a longer Detox Dossier. Now BBC reports about a new case report from British Medical Journal Case Reports about a woman suffering of serious health problems after performing various detox procedures. (more…)
Language: English
New Wikipedia biography about Dutch skeptic
In recent years, mathematician Pepijn van Erp has risen to prominence within the skeptical movement in the Netherlands. He started blogging about flawed application of statistics in both scientific and pseudoscientific articles, and got involved with Stichting Skepsis as a board member in 2012.
Nowadays he regularly writes articles on various dubious claims in an investigative journalistic style on skeptical blog KloptDatWel.nl (mostly in Dutch) and his own website (mostly in English). Van Erp is occasionally invited to give his expert opinion on radio shows about conspiracy theories, fake news and other topics that skeptics are concerned about. To him, skepticism is ‘interesting and funny’, but also a ‘civic duty’ to protect people from harm.
The team of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia has written two new biographies about Van Erp, one in English and one in Dutch, to explain to the general public what his activism is about.
‘Integrative Care’ beds to disappear from Glasgow hospital
A National Health Service board in Glasgow has decided to remove seven inpatient beds at the Centre for Integrative Care at Gartnavel Hospital. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde voted to end funding the beds at a meeting on 20.12.16 in order to save money; services will continue to be provided on an outpatient basis. The NHS Centre for Integrative Care is the only such service in Scotland and offers a range of alternative therapies for people with long-term conditions such as chronic pain, low energy, low mood and anxiety. It previously operated as the Homeopathic Hospital.
How marketing is exploiting our cognitive biases – Discussion paper
Swiss skeptics published their final discussion paper for 2016. It’s about consumer behavior and cognitive biases. The abstract says:
As consumers, we are rational in principle, but all too often irrational in practice: A number of so-called cognitive biases impact our rational decision-making. Our tendency for irrational decision-making is compounded by marketing, which is little more than the art of exploiting cognitive biases. Cognitive biases affect consumer behavior on two dimensions, preference genesis and preference order.
Prevalent though they are, cognitive biases in consumer behavior are not inevitable. There are two general strategies for reducing the impact of cognitive biases: Debiasing and self-nudging.
Download the paper directly from here:
Kovic M., Laissue N. – Consuming rationally: How marketing is exploiting our cognitive biases, and what we can do about it – Swiss Skeptics Discussion Paper Series Volume 1, Issue 3
Video extracts of ‘Evidence Matters’ meeting
Sense About Science has now prepared a short video (see link) of extracts from their meeting ‘Evidence Matters’ on Nov 1st 2016 held at the UK Parliament. Over 100 people from all walks of life attended to make parliamentarians, ministers and officials more aware that evidence matters to the public. Sense About Science had put out a call for stories illustrating the importance of evidence, and presented them in booklet (http://tinyurl.com/jtrmyx5) that was handed out at the event. Some of the vignettes included in the booklet were presented by their authors – fifteen members of the public who included a teacher, a cycling campaigner, a housing officer, a football supporter, and the mother of a child with a rare heart condition. It would be wonderful if similar meetings could be held in parliaments across Europe.