Skepticism, evidence, science, mythbusting, consumer protection
News headlines from Europe about skeptical activism, mythbusting, science related policy decisions, consumer protection, frauds, health scams, alternative medicine, bad scientific practices, pseudoscience etc.
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.
This was the first talk in a series of the same name that will have monthly editions till June 2017. Experts from the fields of Philosophy, physics, anthropology, medicine, chemistry, biology and sociology will all contribute to these reflections on secularism and freedom of conscience.
If you are going to be visiting Granada in the upcoming months why not check out a session, all of which will take place at 19in the University’s scientific documentation centre.
The video for the first session is now available.
For the first time in Dutch history, the official number of religious and irreligious people is equal, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports. The percentage of religiously affiliated citizens above age 18 dropped from 55% in 2010 to 50% last year, a turning point in the ongoing process of secularisation. The current figures are:
There are large geographical differences, with the more urbanised West (North and South Holland) being the most secular, the southern provinces of North Brabant and Limburg being the most (nominally) Catholic.
Only 1 in 6 people still regularly attend religious services though. In the conservative Protestant Bible Belt, running across the country from the southwest to the northeast, this figure is higher, sometimes over half, and in the case of Urk 94%.
The actual percentage of believers is much lower than 50%, however. A lot of people still registered as members of a church are actually not religious (anymore), but for various reasons have not officially renounced their membership (yet) – a phenomenon known as ‘belonging without believing’. An earlier 2016 survey by Bernts & Berghuijs showed that people’s actual religious convictions were as follows:
This shows a big disconnect between membership and actual adherence. Especially the Catholic Church often claims that a quarter of the Dutch population is Catholic, pointing to the official stats, but when questioned, fewer than half that number associate themselves with the Roman faith.
According to Bernts & Berghuijs, their attitudes regarding the existence of (a) god(s) were:
A December 2014 survey showed a similar reversal in public opinion, when for the first time in the Netherlands’ history, more than half of people (63%) thought that religion does more harm than good.
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.
Zavech Research had recently conducted a poll on behalf of major Hungarian portal Index on what people believe about the efficacy and role of “official” and alternative medical practices and institutions. The results are disappointing as it can be seen from the graphs attached.
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
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.
For the last 6 years Pensando Críticamente has been discussing science, pseudo-science and featuring interviews with speakers from the Skeptics in the Pub events in Madrid.
The complete archive is available at Ivoox and iTunes.
Dear skeptics!
As I am sure you all know by now, the next ESC ’17 will take place in Poland in September of next year.
The Polish Skeptics Club and the Czech Skeptics Club Sisyfos have a holiday surprise for you. Starting tomorrow, December 12th at 12:12 CET, you can start purchasing TICKETS to the ESC! Also, the first 50 Good Tickets are 20% off – 80 Eur instead of the regular price of 100 Eur.
What this all means is that not only do you save on your ticket, but you can get a wonderful present for your loved ones who are skeptics and for your loved ones who aren’t (yet).
Happy holidays!
A psychologist employed by the Swedish Public Health Service has privately offered and sold healing treatments to patients who she was treating in the public clinic. The treatments have been following the teachings of “Access Consciousness”, a sect-like movement founded in the eighties by a former Scientology member called Gary Douglas.
The situation was revealed on 7 December by an investigative journalist in the TV program “SVT Dold” (SVT Hidden) at SVT, the Swedish public service broadcasting company.
The Swedish Skeptics Association (aka VoF) published a highly critical debate article on 8 December (http://www.svt.se/opinion/vof-om-sekter), explaining how important it is that the Swedish Health services take every step to not expose patients to quackery, and that they have to ensure that dangerous sects and other scams are kept out of public health care.