May 19, 2010

Trivia Night, May 2010

On Monday night the Victorian Skeptics ran their annual Trivia Night.
Many thanks to Ken for all the work he did … collating questions, getting prizes, putting the audio of the horse race together, lugging all the equipment, etc, etc…
[slideshow]
As usual, the questions were of a skeptical / scientific bent. They ranged from dowsing the location of “Mystic Park” on a map of Victoria, to identifying anti-vax crusader Meryl Dorey from a fuzzy photo.
One of the highlights of the evening was the running of the Alternative Handicap, which is well worth a listen.

Or download

In the end, the award for Most Trivial Team went to….
View More Trivia Night, May 2010

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May 14, 2010

How to assess evidence beyond your own expertise


Eran Segev, Australian Skeptics President spoke on ABC Radio National’s Ockham’s Razor program recently.
How do you assess evidence if it’s not your area of expertise?  Eran speaks about Skeptics “rules of thumb” to help guide us when assessing evidence.  Rules of thumb such as:

Ockham’s razor

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Anecdote and testimonials are not reliable

Experts do know more

Trust the scientific method

Listen:

Or visit the ABC Ockham’s Razor site.

Worth listening to,  Mal.

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May 11, 2010

A Critical Look at "The Health Report"

The Health Report (ABC RN) of Monday 10th May had a story on a “unique centre in Western Australia combining high tech cancer care with complementary medicine.”
For the curious, the MP3 can be downloaded here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/, go to Monday 10/5/2010, Cancer Care.
Dr Stephen Basser responds:
I listened to the Health Report piece this morning, and offer the following thoughts:
–  The report perpetuates the myth that there are two ‘strands’ or ‘streams’ of medicine, and offers implied support for those who push the idea that the alternative stream is a valid one that we should be using more, but cannot do so because it is being suppressed or not fully acknowledged by the mainstream. We are meant to believe that alternative medicine is being rejected because we don’t understand it, or it’s financially challenging us, or we’re brainwashed by drug companies, or some other conspiracy related charge. All of this is, of course, rubbish. View More A Critical Look at "The Health Report"

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May 10, 2010

The Australian Skeptic's Guide to Cold Reading

This article first appeared as a Vic Skeptics discussion pamphlet.
The full range of our discussion pamphlets can be downloaded here: http://www.skeptics.com.au/resources/educational/
or by clicking on the “Useful Info” link at the top of this page.

Have you ever bought something that you didn’t really want, because the salesperson was so nice, so persuasive, so helpful? Chances are that the salesperson (whether they knew it or not) was using some of the techniques of a skilled Cold Reader.
“Cold Reading” is a term invented by stage magicians. It refers to psychological techniques used by certain people to influence the beliefs and behaviour of other people. View More The Australian Skeptic's Guide to Cold Reading

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May 10, 2010

Conceiving God, I've read it


A little while ago I posted about a book I’d just bought called “Conceiving God” by David Lewis-Williams.  I hadn’t read the book at that stage but I have now.
I just wanted to highly recommend it. I don’t think it’s in paperback yet and the hardback costs the best part of $50.  I’m not reviewing it but I thought I’d give people a bit of a taste. The title tells you what it’s about. People invented God. But why?
View More Conceiving God, I've read it

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May 6, 2010

Death by Alien Attack? Or, We Come in Peace?


Stephen Hawking thinks we should be concerned about aliens.  In a yet to be released documentary series, Hawking speculates about what might happen if our little blue dot where found by an alien civilization.

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,

And

Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach,

Let’s do some science.   Survey all the alien civilizations we know about and work out which are likely to do us in and which are our good friends.  Hmmm…. View More Death by Alien Attack? Or, We Come in Peace?

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April 30, 2010

Brain train or another's gain?


A recent study, “Putting brain training to the test” by Owen, A.M. et al. has received advanced online publication in Nature. The largest trial of its type to date it presents findings into the efficacy of “brain training” computer games.

“Bang Goes The Theory” is a BBC science programme. Researchers and the BBC Lab UK website retained a respectable 11,430 subjects from an initial 52,617 viewers of “Bang Goes The Theory” who had registered to complete the online study.
Subjects were aged between 18-60 and over six weeks completed a benchmark assessment and at least two full training sessions, with a mean of 24.47 training sessions. Participants were divided into three groups. A general non-reasoning group practiced tasks available with commercial brain training devices: memory, mathematics, visuospatial processing and attention…. View More Brain train or another's gain?

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