Keeping it simple today. I just received this, so I’m passing it on. Good projects, useful work. Get involved. Involves no sugar pills, baking soda, or other form of piss-taking.
Runs on BOINC.
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Category Archives: Science
Video of the day: Powers of ten
This video is proof positive that the entertainment sector is more important for human health, happiness and the spread of knowledge than the entire fringe therapy industry. It was spotted and posted to YouTube by a video director who works for a rock band (who I am not going to name because one can only take so many perverts and whackjobs infesting the search terms).
It’s not recent: it was made in the 1970s. However, the maths covered hasn’t changed an iota. Do you have trouble visualising exactly what Avogadro’s number (usually rendered as 1023) really means?
Reblog: Science-Based Medicine » Does thinking make it so? CAM placebo fantasy versus scientific reality
Image via Wikipedia
I’m not in the habit of reblogging posts from other sites here, unless I think they’re really important. Usually I’ll just link to them from within one of my own rants. This is one of those exceptions.
Like the author, Dr David Gorski, I’ve noticed that woopologists, when their every argument for their favourite fringe therapy has been countered, often resort to the Maginot line of defence: “the placebo effect is real and we don’t fully understand it, so that makes it important to research and promote CAM”. This is doubly bollocks, as a moment’s thought would have told them. Not only does real medicine also have a placebo effect, hence the use of inert controls in clinical trials, but if a therapy has no more effect than placebo, then there is no reason to provide it in place of, and at a higher price than, placebos like sugar pills or coloured water. Unless, of course, you’re the homeopath selling those sugar pills or coloured water, but I was talking of ethical reasons; although the ethics of prescribing placebos (and by definition lying to the patient) is another stormy philosophical debate entirely.
Video of the day: bad project
Just found this. What more needs to be said? If you’ve ever inherited a duff project, be it as part of your studies or part of your job – sorry, students, but this shit continues to happen even after you’ve got that precious piece of paper rumoured to shield you from poverty – then this nicely executed Lady Gaga filk sums it up beautifully. Admire the costumes.
Video of the century: Open-mindedness
This video should be required viewing for everyone. Everyone. Those who make statements they can’t back up, or on too little evidence. Those who battle the superstitious, the apologists and all the other forms of logic-challenged life. And by battle, I really do mean battle: just saying “I don’t believe it” or “that is inaccurate, here’s why” can be perceived by some as a call for a full-out assault on your hold on reality. They can swiftly become very insistent, aggressive and even abusive; you need only read the comments in the science sections of online news sources to see how fast things can go downhill.
