Siouxsie Wiles • Jan 12, 2018 •
Shocking revelations around a clinical trial of a new tuberculosis vaccine are just the tip of the iceberg. Maintaining public trust in science depends on open science. Ten years ago, Dr Ben Goldacre published Bad Science, a book described by The Economist as “a fine lesson in how to skewer the enemies of reason … Read More
Guest Work • Jul 20, 2016 •
Simon Gandevia, Neuroscience Research Australia Spectacular failures to replicate key scientific findings have been documented of late, particularly in biology, psychology and medicine. A report on the issue, published in Nature this May, found that about 90% of some 1,576 researchers surveyed now believe there is a reproducibility crisis in science. While this rightly … Read More
Peter Griffin • Jun 03, 2016 •
Many Sciblogs readers will know the work of Dr Ben Goldacre, the doctor, academic, Guardian columnist and author of the best seller Bad Science. Goldacre touches down briefly in Auckland in September for one event at the Mercury Theatre, which if his previous public appearances are anything to go by, will be a funny, enlightening and ironic affair. Read More
Ken Perrott • Jun 04, 2015 •
Click on image to enlarge Another interesting article in the Conversation – Trolling our confirmation bias: one bite and we’re easily sucked in by Will Grant. It underlines a point I have often made – that the sensible reader must approach the scientific literature … Continue reading → … Read More
Mark Hanna • Mar 13, 2015 •
This afternoon, the Advertising Standards Authority released their decision to uphold an interesting complaint regarding advertisements for a couple of cleaning products on a website. Here is the ASA’s description of how the products were described on the website: The Wendyl’s website (http://wendyls.co.nz/) for “100% natural cleaning and beauty products” advertised their products as having […] … Read More
Mark Hanna • Mar 06, 2015 •
Recently I’ve run across a couple of New Zealand companies that sell therapeutic products – one a weight loss pill, the other a jet lag drink – that seem to put marketing first and let science take the back seat. This is by no means new behaviour, but I want to use them as examples […] … Read More
Mark Hanna • Feb 01, 2015 •
Biosecurity is a big issue for New Zealand. Being a group of islands fairly isolated from all other landmasses and having quite a unique native ecosystem (many native birds with no native mammalian predators and few native land mammals), we have a lot to lose from introduced species. There are also biological threats to industry […] … Read More
Ken Perrott • Jan 04, 2015 •
Compound Interest has produced another great infographic in their series. This one helps us to spot bad science. Click to enlarge. You can download the current version as a PDF here. It is worth thinking about each of the suggested … Continue reading → … Read More
Mark Hanna • Aug 10, 2014 •
If you haven’t already read my post about Osmosis Skincare’s Drinkable Sunscreen, you might want to do that before you read this one. A brief overview is that Osmosis Skincare claims drinking their “harmonized water” prevents sunburn. I complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that this claim wasn’t backed up by evidence and the complaint […] … Read More