News headlines from Europe about skeptical activism, mythbusting, science related policy decisions, consumer protection, frauds, health scams, alternative medicine, bad scientific practices, pseudoscience etc.

The 20th European Skeptics Congress!

31 May - 2 June in Lyon, France


Read all about it!
 
As of 29 May 2024 the registrations to attend are now closed. The talks from the congress will be filmed and released in due time.

‘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.

Get tickets to the ESC ’17

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!

Quack scandal in Swedish Public Health Service

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.

Debate: What Role Should Nuclear Power Have in Mitigating Climate Change?

Skepsis ry from Finland is organizing a debate titled: What Role Should Nuclear Power Have in Mitigating Climate Change? Should The World Build More Nuclear Power or Not?

Speakers of the debate are Rauli Partanen, an independent science writer and energy-analyst for the Ecomodernist Society of Finland and professor Jouko Korppi-Tommola, the founder and director of the centre for renewable energy at the University of Jyväskylä.

The debate will be held at the House of Sciences in Helsinki, first wednesday of December (7.12.2016) at 18:00. Entry is free, and everyone is welcome.

Non-GMO GMO news

Activists in France destroyed a farm of non-GMO plant that was most probably created using mutation breeding. This technology is used since the 30th and some of the plants and plants created this way had not been the target of anti-GMO activists so far. Those had even been used in organic farming and product created from them had been sold as “natural” or “organic”. See for example here: Delicious mutant foods: Mutagenesis and the genetic modification controversy

Anti GMO activists now widen the definition of the enemy into such a scale that would practically include all plants and animals – including us.

English translation of the French news: Activists destroy conventional rapeseed (canola) fields in France, claiming they are GMOs