There is only one thing I enjoy more than exposing junk-science scams and that exposing junk-science scams where the perpetrator is dumb enough to try it on. This morning, three comments were posted on my recent exposé of the ‘dowsing for explosives’ scam in the space of 20 […]

I learned a new word this week – EmoTrance. EmoTrance is the new name for bullshit. In the last week, its received no less than two articles worth of coverage in The Times’ educational supplements; one, a vomit inducing piece of brainless advertorial by Adi Bloom, an arts […]

The row over the sacking of Professor David Nutt is, it seems, rumbling on nicely with this exchange between Evan Harris and Alan Johnson in regards to the accuracy, or otherwise, of comments made by Johnson in his statement to the House of Commons: The exchange contains this […]

Arthur C Clarke once famously noted that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. Were he still alive today he might also have observed that magic, when dressed up in sufficiently advanced technobabble, can be readily mistaken for science. Tuesday’s New York Times carried this quite staggering […]

If you’ll excuse the bad pun, Alan Johnson has made a complete hash of his handling of the sacking of Professor David Nutt. No, that’s unfair – the government has collectively made a complete hash of things. Johnson is just the poor sap who’s having to field a […]

Coming on top of the lifting of Carter-Ruck’s attempt to gag The Guardian on behalf of Trafigura, yesterday’s news that Simon Singh has now been granted leave to appeal Justice Eady’s perverse ruling on the meaning of the statements for which he’s being sued for libel by the […]

As might well be expected, the published findings of a major Food Standards Agency commissioned systematic review of the alleged health benefits of organic produce have put a few noses out of joint, not least that of the Soil Association, after it concluded that: …there are no important […]

Hey, you know me – always up for a bit of Spartacus action. So as the call has gone out from Sense About Science, asking bloggers to reproduce the article for which Simon Singh is currently being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association then, of course, […]

Anyone who’s passionate about science, as I am, cannot help but be seriously concerned by the growing extent to which anti-scientific ideas, and the groups and organisations that promote them, are increasingly creeping into public life and attracting mainstream political support. While it’s easy to ridicule the purveyors […]

I’m generally not one for talking up the qualities of Tory Shadow Ministers, as you might easily guess, but I have to admit that for a while I’ve considered the Shadow Education Minister, Michael Gove, to be one of the more quietly impressive figures in what is otherwise […]