Bad Science
I don’t like ignorance. Ignorance and selfishness cause most of the man-made problems in the world, and most of the “selfishness” ones require ignorance to work. Despite this, many people are shockingly ignorant. I’m not going to hold that against them; they’ve probably been misled or badly educated, or something. But people who actively seek out ignorance I have no such sympathy for.
These are people who think we should have schools based on “faith” — that is, education based on unfounded beliefs! This particular brand of moron includes the government, and it is indeed a legal requirement that all UK schools must include a daily act of collective worship. This makes me incredibly angry. Then there are the quacks who push “alternative therapies”, such as the laughably preposterous ‘homeopathy’. These people make a lot of money out of ignorance, and so they put a lot of evidence into making sure that people stay ignorant. That is nothing more or less than fraud. Then there are religious groups, who enjoy all kinds of special privileges and rights that other, more rational, groups are denied. Spiritualists, psychics, dowsers, faith healers, evangelists, creationists and Sharia enthusiasts… the list goes on for as long as you like. They’re all preying on the ignorant, and they all deserve ridicule and possibly a swift kick up the arse.
So here is a list of links to websites that can help fight them:
- Bad Science — a regular column in the Guardian reporting on the abuse of science by the media.
- Bad Science Blogs — a website that aggregates relevant posts from a variety of blogs (some listed here) which report on similar stuff. This site is one of them.
- The Quackometer — another “bad science” blog, with the added bonus that it scans newspaper sites and automatically assess them for bad-scienceyness.
- Snopes — a quick and efficient way to debunk any urban myths you may hear.
- National Secularist Society — their “what the papers say” feed is good.
- Improbabe Science — a well known anti-quack blog.
- Pharyngula — more of the same, with a biology slant. A lot of good anti-creationist stuff here, including fantastic angry emails from creationists.
- Holford Watch — The antics of Patrick Holford, who calls himself a nutritionist because you have to be qualified to call yourself a dietician.
- Ambri-guous — more secular than anti-woo, but both, really.
- Gimpy’s Blog — some good pro-science ranting/discussion here.
- jdc325’s weblog — more of the same.
- Letting Off Steam — jaycueaitch is not to be confused with jaydeecee.
- A Cannae Change The Laws Of Physics — another anti-quack blog. Very, very thorough.
- Hack/Handsaw — also thorough. And terribly authoritative, though I’m not at all sure where that comes from.
- Frank the Science Punk — Science Punk is great. Read it.
- Skeptobot — this site features a robot with a monocle. What more could you possibly need to know?
- What The Hell Is This? — shpalman is angry, but always polite. Well usually.
- Skeptik’s Annotated Bible — a full copy of the bible, complete with annotations pointing out the various stupid bits. Also covers a couple of other ‘holy’ books.
Most the above have extensive links pages, so you absolutely should explore further. If you know of a site that should be posted here then do please let me know.