Much has already been written on the subject of the first two oral evidence sessions in Science and Technology Committee’s investigation of  homeopathy, more than enough, in fact, to allow me to point you in the direction of a couple of articles by Ben Goldacre and Skepticat’s excellent commentary and let you take it from [...]

An adventure into drugs policy, risk and mortality statistics…

If you complied a list of all the people you wouldn’t offer a column on drugs policy to then Ann Widdecombe would surely be in the top ten and not too far away from Melanie Phillips, but no, in its infinite wisdom the Guardian has handed Widdie the opportunity to drivel forth on a subject [...]

To pick up the full background to this post, you’ll need to read this article of mine at Lib Con, and this response from Letters From A Tory, first…
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Finished? Good, then we’ll move on.
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There’s an common exercise that was widely used by English teachers back when I was at school, one which may well still [...]

From the blanket coverage he’s getting in today’s Guardian you might think that Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of the Cambridge University Autism Research Centre had made some kind of major scientific breakthrough:
New research published today will bring prenatal testing for autism significantly closer, prompting experts to call for a national debate about the consequences of screening [...]

There is quite an astonishing article published on Comment Is Free at the moment, bemoaning the widespread publication of ‘flawed’ scientific research and the misreporting of scientific evidence by journals and the popular press:
People who use science to inform their decisions and policies, on anything from cancer prevention to climate change and food safety, know [...]

A few months back, a blogging physics teacher by the (online) name of Wellington Grey caused a bit of stir by publishing an open letter to the DfES and AQA asking, actually begging, them to give him his subject back.
I am a physics teacher. Or, at least I used to be. My subject is still [...]

I’m in a fisking mood today, and as Dorries is more that usually inane at the moment, I’m afraid its going to have to be a bit of Mad Mel that gets the bullet:
Oh God! Tony Blair has confessed to religious faith being ‘hugely important’ to him during his tenure as Prime Minister.

And?
The full force [...]

I’ve seen some bullshit in my time but this piss-poor attempt at a defence of homoeopathy by Denis MacEoin just about takes the biscuit:
Last week, novelist Jeanette Winterson published an intelligent and lucid account of why she believes homeopathy works. Three days later, along came Ben Goldacre, who gave us a longer piece showing us [...]

Due to Richard Dawkins’ own site having bandwidth problems with the download version of his 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, Growing Up In The Universe, I’ve decided to put up a download mirror for my readers – I’m assuming that as these files have been released into the bittorrent networks, there will be no problems [...]