Simon Baker – The Quackometer Blog

Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the mh-magazine domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/quack/public_html/blog/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121
Simon Baker – The Quackometer Blog

Biodynamic Farming: “A rather magnificent cow-dung ice cream cone”

15th February, 2013 144

More ill-considered tosh from our national broadcaster. This time it’s biodynamic farming. Sitting out on the bonkers fringes of the organic farming movement squats another of Rudolph Steiner’s bastard offspring birthed at a lecture series in 1924. [Follow the link and see what passes for research in some areas of social science. You can tell it’s ‘science’ cos it’s got numbers and some Σ symbols. Maths-tastic!] Among its principles are planting schemes [read more…]

Falsely balanced or balanced by falsity?

29th January, 2013 25

This is a guest post from vet, Simon Baker. It is timely for me as last week I turned down the offer of being interviewed by the BBC on a subject concerning quackery. I knew who I was ‘up against’ and struggled to see how such a report could ever be accurate and appropriately balanced. Simon’s post explores the problems of balance in the media when discussing fringe ideas. Prologue [read more…]