Darcy Cowan • Oct 01, 2012 •
I happened to be browsing and saw a review of the newly released iPhone 5. On a whim I figured I’d have a look, turned out the most interesting part of the review for me was the misunderstanding of psychology in the opening paragraphs. In setting up how “everyman” their acquisition of the new phone [&hellip … Read More
Darcy Cowan • May 07, 2012 •
The optimist in me (no sniggers please it’s not polite) would liked to have thought that this percentage is quite low. You know, in the barely worth mentioning category. Alas, according to a poll conducted by Ipsos the world average is about 14%. One in seven. Think about that for a second. One seventh of [&hellip … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Mar 29, 2012 •
End of the world predictions and scenarios abound, we have always been fascinated with our own demise it seems. Last year I covered the predictions of Harold Camping and the relatively small following he had in his advertising the apocalypse campaign. This year we have the Mayans to blame and it’s rather more wide spread [&hellip … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Mar 26, 2012 •
I often read that the reason people are turning to complementary/alternative/integrative(take your pick) medicine is because they are dissatisfied with the care received from mainstream/conventional/”western”* medicine. This may be true for a small segment of the population, those with a chronic illness or with terminal cancer spring to mind. But is this generally true of [&hellip … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Mar 21, 2012 •
Primum non nocere A while ago I was accused of advocating that doctors should break the Hippocratic oath. That the cardinal rule of “First, do no harm” should be ignored. Setting aside that this phrase does not appear in the Hippocratic oath, what do we mean by harm in the context of medicine? I was [&hellip … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Dec 07, 2011 •
Reading the paper today I learned that 1/3 of New Zealanders believe that we have been visited by extra terrestrials. I thought this was an interesting juxtaposition of stories given that a page or two later there was a report about a possibly habitable planet. Maybe aliens are visiting us from Kepler-22b. Keplerites aside, I … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Nov 01, 2011 •
Over at Psychology in Action there’s a decent post on confounding variables. The focus is on conducting and reading research and determining good research study practice but I think there is value in everyone knowing what confounding variables are. So what are they? Well, read that post…… Ok, good. Another example that I got in [...] … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Oct 17, 2011 •
I have spent some time recently labelling the IAS as anti-vaccine. They themselves categorically state that they are not anti-vaccine. Who am I to say that I’m right and they are wrong? Well, nobody really. I can’t read their minds, although if I could would that change anything? All anyone can do is examine their [...] … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Oct 14, 2011 •
Finally in the series of extracts from my IAS Charity complaint, I give a brief look at the impact of anti-vaccine information in New Zealand. I also bring together information from other parts of the complaint that have not been covered in the extracts so far. Impact of Anti-Vaccinationist Misinformation in New Zealand Maintaining a [...] … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Oct 13, 2011 •
Next up in our voyage of crank discovery, via extracts from my IAS charity complaint, is a breakdown of simplistic reasoning around vaccine ingredients. Again, I have reproduced elements of the original article here for your convenience. The following example was posted as a look at vaccine ingredients in two parts. I will not be [...] … Read More