Skepticism is a method of assessing claims. It is a form of critical inquiry which can be used positively: in business; by consumers; in the defence against being defrauded or scammed; as an intellectual exercise; and in increasing one's knowledge and awareness of reality in general.
The idea is to look beyond claims, beliefs and opinions, which are often accepted at face value, and look at whether the evidence actually supports such claims. This approach also makes skepticism a valuable thinking tool where opposing or contradictory claims are made for the same issue.
For an overview of skepticism see: What is Skepticism?
Items and News
Open University Bridge to Success project
The Open University’s international Open Learning: Bridge to Success (B2S) pilot project will be featured in a speech by OU speakers at open educational resource conference, Cambridge 2012, at the Queens’ College, from 16-18 April. Journalists with an interest in open learning are invited to attend the event or arrange interviews following the conference.
See link for full details.
homeopathy awareness week 2012
Here's a good article on the annual event known as "Homeopathy awareness week". The 2012 event will concentrate on how homeopathy can be used as a fertility treatment.
Homeopathy awareness week is simply an advertising event for the benefit of homeopaths.
As the article rightly points out, consumers should be aware of homeopathy - aware of its bogus claims and that it doesn't work for anything whatsoever that is.
Open University to play a role in Mars explorationNASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have embarked on a joint programme to study the chemical composition of the atmosphere of Mars from 2016. They have just announced the providers of five scientific instruments for the first mission, including a consortium in which The Open University has a major role.
The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission, scheduled for 2016, will be the first of three joint robotic missions to the Red Planet. The first mission will study the chemicals in the Martian atmosphere to establish whether Mars is, ever was, or could become a living planet. ExoMars will also relay additional communications for a Mars surface mission in 2018.
NASA and ESA invited scientists worldwide to propose instruments for use on the spacecraft, and from the 19 proposals received, five were finally selected on the basis of the best scientific value and lowest risk.
The Open University is a member of the SOIR-NOMAD consortium, led by Dr Ann Carine Vandaele of the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy. The consortium will build a High Resolution Solar Occultation and Nadir Spectrometer, which is designed to detect trace gases such as methane in the Martian atmosphere and map where they are over the entire planet.
Under the leadership of Dr Manish Patel, an Aurora Academic Fellow, The Open University will provide the Ultraviolet and Visible Spectrometer (UVIS) channel for the instrument. Dr Patel said: “The OU brings valuable expertise in short wavelength observation and instrument design to complement the longer wavelength expertise of the consortium, and our role will be to provide the UVIS instrument for SOIR-NOMAD in order to measure ozone and dust/ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere”.
Editor's Notes
1. NASA and ESA’s plan of cooperation consists of two Mars cooperative missions in 2016 and 2018, and a later joint sample return mission. See links (right) for further information.
2. The Open University’s contribution will build on work originally intended for the ExoMars Rover and Lander. This work can be applied to the Orbiter, with some small modifications. It builds upon a growing area of expertise in the University, including Martian spectroscopy, optical instrumentation and atmospheric modeling.
3. The Open University climbed 23 places to 43rd in the UK’s latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008), securing a place in the UK’s top 50 higher education institutions. Results showed that more than 50% of the University’s research is internationally excellent (3*), with a significant proportion world-leading (4*).
The Open University is the UK’s largest university and the world leader in distance education, and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2009. It has more than 200,000 students in over 40 countries. Of these, some 1,300 are postgraduate research students.
The latest edition of the Open University’s Research Highlights brochure can be downloaded from: www.open.ac.uk/research/research-highlights
Open Research Online (ORO), the University’s freely accessible repository of research publications, is available at: http://oro.open.ac.uk. ORO has around 35,000 visitors from over 170 different countries each month, and is currently ranked the fifth best higher education repository in the UK by the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR).
Near Death Experiences - a critical examination.
There is a growing perception that the existence of near-death experiences (NDEs) poses a serious challenge to current scientific understandings of the brain, mind and consciousness. This was reaffirmed recently in a high-impact publication published in the Lancet by van Lommel, van Wees, Meyers, & Elfferich (2001); however, Dr Jason Braithwaite, an award-winning cognitive neuroscientist from the University of Birmingham (UK), notes that while the van Lommel paper is methodologically useful it contains errors of interpretation and conclusion.
In his paper 'Towards a Cognitive Neuroscience of the Dying Brain' recently published in The Skeptic magazine (UK) (edited by Professor Chris French), Dr Braithwaite argues that Survivalists have repeatedly misunderstood and misrepresented the dying-brain hypothesis when trying to argue against it.
Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deceptionMichael Shermer, president of the Skeptics Society in the USA gives a talk on how it is we see patterns that aren't there and give meaning to them.
The libel reform campaign
Message from Simon Singh:
Dear Friends,
I’ve had an idea – an unusual idea, but I think it might just work.
As you know, England’s chilling libel laws need to be reformed. One way to help achieve this is for 100,000 people to sign the petition for libel reform before the political parties write their manifestos for the election. We have 17,000 signatures, but we really need 100,000, and we need your help to get there.
www.libelreform.org/sign
My idea
My idea is simple: if everyone who has already signed up persuades just one more person each week to sign the petition then we will reach our goal within a month!
One person per week is all we need, but please spread the word as much as you can. In fact, if you persuade 10 people to sign up then email me (simon@simonsingh.net) and I promise to thank you by printing your name in my next book … which I will start writing as soon as I have put my own libel case behind me. I cannot say when this will be, but it is a very real promise. My only caveat is that I will limit this to the first thousand people who recruit ten supporters.
When persuading your friends remember to tell them:
(a) English libel laws have been condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee.
(b) These laws gag scientists, bloggers and journalists who want to discuss matters of genuine public interest (and public health!).
(c) Our laws give rise to libel tourism, whereby the rich and the powerful (Saudi billionaires, Russian oligarchs and overseas corporations) come to London to sue writers because English libel laws are so hostile to responsible journalism. (In fact, it is exactly because English libel laws have this global impact that we welcome signatories to the petition from around the world.)
(d) Vested interests can use their resources to bully and intimidate those who seek to question them. The cost of a libel trial in England is 100 times more expensive than the European average and typically runs to over £1 million.
(e) Three separate ongoing libel cases involve myself and two medical researchers raising concerns about three medical treatments. We face losing £1 million each. In future, why would anyone else raise similar concerns? If these health matters are not reported, then the public is put at risk.
My experience has been sobering. I’ve had to spend £100,000 to defend my writing and have put my life on hold for almost two years. However, the prospect of reforming our libel laws keeps me cheerful.
Thanks so much for your support. We’ve only got one shot at this – so I hope you can persuade 1 (or maybe 10) friends, family and colleagues to sign.
Massive thanks,
Simon
www.libelreform.org/sign
The Libel Reform Campaign is a coalition of English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense About Science.
So far, 188 MPs have signed our Parliamentary Early Day Motion calling for libel reform and the Justice Secretary Jack Straw has formed a working party that the Libel Reform Coalition is represented on.
Please also considering donating to keep our campaign going: www.libelreform.org
Acupuncture and TCM for fertility treatment
Today, the British Fertility Society published a press release to issue new guidelines on the use of acupuncture and traditional Chinese herbal medicine (TCM). The message is that "there is currently no evidence that having acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine treatment around the time of assisted conception increases the likelihood of subsequent pregnancy."
The implication of this is that couples who are undergoing fertility treatment may be paying, often a lot of money, for 'complementary' treatments like acupuncture or TCM in the hope that it will improve their chances (even if only slightly); but research shows that this is money being spent on something completely ineffective.
If the NHS are funding these 'complementary' treatments, then they are simply wasting taxpayers' money.
UKS newsletter released
The latest UK-Skeptics newsletter has been released.
Again, we have news, articles, and commentary.
There are features on:
- A woman's place?
- UK-Skeptics conference synopsis
- Charles Bonnet syndrome
- Interview with Hayley Stevens
- Book: Leaving the Land of Woo
