Darcy Cowan
The Importance of Not Being a Dick - Skepticon
Dec 02, 2014
Several years ago Phil Plait gave a talk at TAM that has become known as the “Don’t be a Dick” speech. There he was mainly talking about online skepticism and how to tailor our message so that it is effective rather than off-putting. In that talk the goal was better evangelising (for lack of a better term) skepticism so that the hearers of the message would be more receptive. With many of us celebrating holidays and gathering with loved ones in the coming weeks I want to make the same plea but narrow the focus to friends and family. How often do we run into a colleague, friend or family member whom we thought believed as we do but it turns out there’s this one thing they hold on to we can’t abide? … Read More
The Anti-Vax Group Formerly Known as AVN - Skepticon
Mar 11, 2014 •
Those in the loop may already know that the long awaited name change for the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), the anti-vaccine mouth piece of Meryl Dorey, ordered in late 2012 has recently occurred. The new moniker for the group is Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network, I assume the hyphenation is present so that the group might reasonably continue [&hellip
Elves Stop Construction - Skepticon
Dec 24, 2013 •
A couple of years ago I wrote a post about Taniwha and whether their alleged presence should constitute a stop sign for construction projects. At the time I was responding to an article which proposed just that on the grounds that the Taniwha claims could represent indigenous knowledge of the area relevant to construction. I [&hellip
Vaccines Vs Pneumonia - Skepticon
Jul 29, 2013 •
One of the linchpins of the anti-vaccine movement is the attempt to muddy the issue with regard to vaccine efficacy. From this point various others follow; if vaccines are ineffective then large risks need not be shown – any risk at all makes being vaccinated an unwise choice. If vaccines do not perform their role [&hellip
It’s Not Robots, It’s You! - Skepticon
Jun 13, 2013 •
The above words were said by my not-quite-three-year-old son to his slightly bemused mother this morning. This exchange followed a conversation I had had with my son earlier while getting him dressed which went something like this: [a noise outside very much like a car door slamming] Son: What was that noise? Me: Sounds like [&hellip
Daily Deals and Altmed Pseudoscience - Skepticon
May 09, 2013 •
I’ve been noticing the occasional product on the daily deal site I frequent that is, how to put this delicately, BS. Today I saw one that I just had to have some fun with and hopefully give people some idea of what the product is really about at the same time. In this case the [&hellip
The Scientific Method On TV - Skepticon
Apr 29, 2013 •
Last week Michael Edmonds asked “Which TV Show Best Demonstrates the Scientific Method?” Various shows where suggested such as CSI and NCIS. Bones made an appearance in the comments as one show that exhibits a fair amount of pseudoscience along with it’s “real” science. House was praised for it’s attention to hypothesis generation and testing. [&hellip
Some Statistics On the Science Literacy Test - Skepticon
Jan 24, 2013 •
Ok, it’s been a couple of days now and about 400 people have responded on the quiz. Amazing! Some updates: I’ve added some demographic questions so if you have already filled out the quiz you can do it again to fill out the new data set! YAY! Questions look at age, education level – that [&hellip
Science Literacy Test Initial Follow-up - Skepticon
Jan 23, 2013 •
Yesterday’s post about the Science Literacy test has gotten some good responses. Thought I’d put up a couple of initial thoughts/feed-back on the testing: First off it’s becoming clear that some of the questions are ambiguously worded. This is especially obvious in the results for questions 12 and 14. Question 12, looking at categorizing sources, [&hellip
Test your Science Literacy Skills - Skepticon
Jan 22, 2013 •
Last week an interesting paper was published outlining the development of a test designed to evaluate science literacy. The basic idea of the test is to examine a number of different skills that are involved in evaluating scientific claims and facts. I liked this idea so much I decided to put together an online version [&hellip