Ten Great Ideas: Pseudoscience
| Because the plural of 'anecdote' is 'anecdote', not 'data' | ||
| "All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand" - Steven Wright | ||
| See 'Correlation is not causation' page from this website | Link | Why a little knowledge is a dangerous thing YouTube. 3 mins |
| Using donkey balls to tell the time | Link | One minute. YouTube. |
| Sprinkler rainbow conspiracy | Link | |
| Why Anecdotes Trump Data | Link | From veritasium. YouTube. 10 mins |
5 Ways to Tell Science from Pseudoscience |
Link | inFact with Brian Dunning YouTube. 3 mins |
| An Honest Liar: The Amazing Randi Story | Short introduction. YouTube. 6 mins | |
| Why people believe weird things | Michael Shermer sums it all up on TED. 14 mins | |
| www.skeptic.com/ | Website of the most well-known site for debunking pseudoscience | |
| Similar to the skeptic website | quackometer.net/blog/ | |
Homeopathy
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| Words can't describe . . . | Link | 8 min video. See it's this sort of s@#t that gives Youtube a bad name. |
| Homeopathy in the emergency room | Pi#@take from Mitchell and Webb. Youtube. 3 mins | |
| Dara O Brian takes no prisioners in condemning homeopathy | Youtube. 6 mins | |
| Horizon (BBC) investigates objectively. | Begins with an explanation of homeopathy. YouTube. 10 mins. Part 1 of 5. | |
| Or you can read a short summary of the Horizon program here | From the BBC itself. | |
| And don't give me the "oh but it's organic" line. | Another stand-up routine. YouTube. 1 min | |
| Doctors demand homeopathy products be banned from the NHS | Text-based | |
| How about a homeopathic physics lesson from Dr Werner. | YouTube. 8 mins. It's not easy to bring E = mc squared into homeopathy, but bless her she tries. The mind boggles. | |
Psychic spoon benders |
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| It doesn't quite work for Uri Geller | From YouTube. 14 mins. Last 5 mins is on tele-evangelism | |
| Lauren and Fry - spot any similarities to the previous link? | YouTube comedy clip. 3 mins | |
Dowsing |
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| Did you know that the Iraqi government has spent 85 million dollars on glorified dowsing rods for use as bomb detectors | That's because they cost 40,000 dollars each and . Youtube. 10 mins. It's called the ADE-651 so it must be legit. According to CBS News, the training included instructions to Iraqi users to "shuffle their feet to generate static electricity to make the things work." | |
| Or just go to the explanation of dowsing at 4:45 mins into the same clip | And there you have it. | |
| The millionaire businessman has been convicted of fraud. | BBC news report | |
| James Randi tests a dowser | YouTube. 10 mins. Of course this doesn't prove anything either. So how would you carry out a scientific study? | |
Astrology |
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| Carl Sagan | YouTube. 9 mins | |
| James Randi offers a simple test to debunk astrology. | Youtube. 3 mins | |
| Bill Nye spots a flaw with astrology | YouTube. 1 min | |
Snake Oil |
From Dragon's Den on YouTube. 6 min | |
| Celebraties promoting pseudoscience | pdf courtesy of senseaboutscience.org | |
Electrosensitivity |
Blog post about BBC news program on the topic | |