UK-Skeptics: looking at issues from a factual perspective.

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?

Latest items and News.

29^th July 2008 Michael Shermer: why people believe strange things.

Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society in the USA, gives a lecture on some of the things that skeptics look at and why.

As always, Shermer is informative and highly entertaining. The section on priming is superb - the 'stairway to heaven' example illustrates beautifully just how we can hear (see, interpret, perceive, etc.) something when we've been primed to do so.

8^th July 2008 Acupuncture for IVF: it does not work.

A new study looking into whether acupuncture is useful in helping women undergoing IVF treatment to get pregnant has concluded that acupuncture has no effect on the success rate. See: BBC article.

Although acupuncture itself is implausible (see: acupuncture), the thinking behind the claim was that acupuncture helps to relax the woman and increase blood flow thus helping the embryo implant. i.e. it may work for reasons other than the far-fetched claims of acupuncture.

After comparing real acupuncture to fake acupuncture and doing nothing, the pregnancy success rates were the same in all three groups. This shows that acupuncture has no effect.

However:

But Paul Robin chairman the Acupuncture Society, said: "I'm really surprised by these findings.

"I've been treating people for twenty years and in my experience treatment does seem to improve their chances of becoming pregnant.

"This study has shown that there's no proof that acupuncture can help - so that suggests that there should be lots more studies to examine the question.

"I'm convinced it can help."

How could acupuncturists have been treating people for such a long time and finding that women were getting pregnant after using acupuncture if it doesn't work?

Well, there's always the fallacy of falsely attributing the pregnancy to acupuncture when it would have occurred in any case - and there's the fallacy of confirmation explained here.

By concentrating primarily on the successful outcomes, it creates the illusion that acupuncture is actually being of benefit; whereas in a proper study that controls for such biases, it's found that acupuncture makes absolutely no difference to the outcome whatsoever.

Using acupuncture to aid pregnancy with IVF can cost several hundred pounds; but it gives no improvement in the chances of success.