The Blood is the Life!

[miss_s_b]

Fresh Squeezings from the veins of t'intertubes.

• Evolutionary Psychology is bad science. Yeah, yeah, I know, preaching to the converted here. But the article is a good one, and deserves to be disseminated as widely as possible.


• Speaking of science, Phil Willis MP tweets some welcome news. I fully agree with him that we need to make sure science is where it belongs at the heart of gov.


• Rebecca Dalzell tells a heartwarming tale of Radio 4 addiction. Radio 4 is one of those things that you either get or you don't. I count myself among the utterly addicted. I was led in by the Now Show and now I have the damn thing on for a minimum of 8 hours a day. Radio 4 is the rhythm of life; a comfort and an education in one. I'm glad I'm not alone. Especially in listening with rapt attention to gardeners' question time when I only have a few plant pots...


• andrewducker makes a fabulous point about comment threads. Pls take note, maintainers of Lib Dem Voice, which I have all but stopped visiting, given that you can no longer subscribe to comments and they still have that stupid please add us to your advertising whitelist! Oh, go on, PLEASE thing.


• Space Geeks! Look at this awesome audio-visual slideshow of Saturn and its moons, compiled by the BBC from various sources, including CassiniSaturn.

And today's Meme is an old one from the depths of my LJ:

Poll #619 Truth or Lie?

Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

View Respondents

One of these is true, five are lies. Vote for the one you think is true.

View Answers

My favourite song of all time is Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie
0 (0.0%)

I have owned six dogs in my lifetime
0 (0.0%)

The first album I bought with my own money was Sheer Heart Attack by Queen. It was on cassette.
5 (50.0%)

I have eaten and enjoyed sheep's brain
2 (20.0%)

I have dyed my hair many colours, but never black
3 (30.0%)

My favourite beer is called Moonshine
0 (0.0%)

I'll give you the answers tomorrow.

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Comments

[telegramsam]

I blame Orah Winfrey for Jenny McCarthy. McCarthy never would have gotten the audience she has if she hadn't been brought up on that stage to do her dog-and-pony show with barely any challenge or counterpoint presented by either Oprah herself or allowed out of the audience. Winfrey is one of the worst offenders today when it comes to promoting quackery. I don't mind it when she does nice little human interest shows, and she's done some very worthy humanitarian work in her time, but marching out some of these "alternative medicine" and "life philosphy" gurus on her show is downright irresponsible.

I have a lot of respect for Oprah Winfrey in the fact that she made an empire for herself out of flat-nothing after having a rather unpriveleged childhood, she overcame quite a lot to get where she is, but she needs to take more responsibility for what she promotes on her show. People listen to her, a lot. And sometimes I think she takes a deliberate blind eye to that fact.

Ugh. Yea, McCarthy needs to get her head screwed back on.

[ginasketch]

Actually, no. McCarthy already had a large fanbase without Oprah (mainly middle class moms who believed Wakefield's bunk). There have been plenty of examples cited on Ben Goldacre's blog, and other one whose name I forget (Will have to ask my friend.) I may look for them after work.

[telegramsam]

Well regardless of where she came from, I agree she and other snake-oil salesmen like her need to be called to task.

I mean, I get the whole dont-trust-the-establishment attitude, I'm fairly paranoid myself, but just because the CDC said it doesn't automatically mean it's a OMGCONSPIRACY and untrue. There really isn't any evidence that the MMR vaccine causes autism, and just because kids typically start showing symptoms around that age isn't proof. People don't seem to understand that correlation does not equal causation no matter how much you try to drill it into their heads

But in the case of McCarthy etc a lot of times you're dealing with something more akin to a religious dogma than anything resembling science. You can't shut those people up with reason, because they'll cook up some excuse, logical or not, to refute everything you say. It's like trying to deal with creationists.

At the end of the day all you can do is educate the public and HOPE some of it sinks in. Personally I think science programs in public schools are where the battle really needs to be won, most average people just don't really understand how science works because they simply are not taught the scientific method in any easily graspable way, and it takes on a kind of nebulous magical quality that's very easy for people to just dismiss.

Blah blah ramble ramble. I think I'll shut up now, miss_s_b is probably getting fed up with me flooding her comment page with my drivel by now. :P

[ginasketch]

Not that I don't blame Oprah as well, mind you.