Homeopathy is based on the crackpot ideas that: (1) “like cures like” – sympathetic magic that was abandoned long ago in favour of, well, reality; and (2) the more you dilute (and shake, or “succuss”) a solution of a substance, the more potent that solution becomes – even to the point that Avogadro’s Number...
There are a few things I’ve read today that I really don’t get – in different ways. One is sciencey-cool, one is magic, and the last is cruel and stupid and upsetting. I might start with the latter, so at least there’s something light-hearted to finish the post. But first, here’s something about perplexity...
Magic. Ghosts. Spirits. These are things that pop up in fairy tales and in children’s stories and tv shows & films. Sometimes even they’re debunked – for example in Scooby Doo (though I personally have never liked it) it’s always some guy with a mask and a clever contraption and some flashy chemistry –...
I just saw this, tweeted by Annabel Bentley in London. David Tredinnick, a conservative politician in the UK made an “Early Day Motion” (appropriate, really): That this House welcomes the double-blind study conducted at the outpatient clinic at Jundiai Medical School in São Paulo, Brazil, which consisted of patients with moderate to severe depression; notes...
