The Quackometer Blog – Experiments and Thoughts on Superstitious Health Beliefs

Law

The Illusion of Proof: Confirmation bias and the Lucy Letby Case

Conspiracy theorists fall victim to a fundamental misunderstanding of how to evaluate and synthesise evidence. It’s not that they believe despite a lack of evidence, but rather that they fail to recognise how the evidence they possess is insufficient to support their improbable claims about the world. While conspiracy theorists actively seek out evidence, their first error is confirmation bias – the tendency to search for information that supports their theory, while disregarding or swiftly dismissing counterarguments. They accumulate a collection of facts that align with their beliefs, relying on the sheer volume of evidence to convince themselves that they [read more...]

Sex and Gender

What would an ethical clinical trial into puberty blockers look like?

In light of the Cass Review, the new use of puberty blockers for children is now pretty much restricted to those enrolled in clinical trials in the UK. The Cass Review underscored the lack of [read more...]

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The Futility of Finding Physical Explanations for Homeopathy

by Andy L in featured 52

From the very first decades of homeopathy’s existence in the early 19th Century, mainstream scientists have dismissed its claims for one simple reason: the extremely dilute nature of the remedies. As Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked in 1842 “So much ridicule has been thrown upon the pretended powers of the minute [read more...]

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The Meaning of the 10:23 Homeopathy Campaign.

by Andy L in featured 49

In the last few days, a new campaign has been launched with the aim of showing that homeopathy is an ‘absurd pseudoscience’ and that Boots the Chemists should not be selling these sugar pills to the public as if they were genuine medical products. The ‘10:23’ campaign, as it is [read more...]