Last week, I looked at the history of the Ouija board and how what was for decades seen as a harmless parlour game became a pop culture icon as a gateway to demonic forces. But I left untouched the question: what do Ouija boards really do? Well, what they really
covidplanb.co.nz A rule of thumb in public health, forgotten in the panicked responded to COVID-19, was; If you don’t know the likely result of your intervention, don’t do it. We heavily regret the schism in science and society over COVID-19, but it was made inevitable by
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David Wojick cfact.org David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. Climate science is dominated by alarmists addicted to the idea that increasing carbon dioxide will cause dangerous global warming. How much warming is thus the central scientific question. This
In the classic Warner Bros cartoon Rocket-Bye Baby, a Martian baby is mistakenly delivered to a couple on Earth. Eventually, the preternaturally intelligent tyke builds his own, working, flying saucer. Cut to an auditorium where a sceptical professor-type is scoffing at the popular fad for “little green men from Mars”
Despite their blatherskiting about “listening to the science”, the green-left are often more anti-science than a mediaeval Inquisitor seeing witches under every textbook. Despite its track record of safety, green activists are implacably opposed to nuclear energy. The usual gaggle of nosey-nannas, “doctors for the environment” and alarmist “scientists” also
More than a century after it went to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, the Titanic continues to fascinate. You might think that by now there was nothing left to mine in the story of the world’s most famous shipwreck. But research continues to uncover tantalising new details. Space
John Rofe Private Investigator The Holocene interglacial period began at the end of the most recent full ice age which ended about 11,700 years ago. It is generally accepted that the passage of Ice Ages and their interglacial intervals occurs every 100,000-120,000 years and they are caused
John Rofe Private Investigator New Zealand is a land bordered by sea, sand and surf so it is no wonder we have some of the best sailors and surfers to be found anywhere. Surfers know that as soon as the sun rises in the East, the wind gets up and
Chris Sellars Scientific Method – the system of advancing knowledge by formulating a question, collecting data about it through observation and experiment, and testing a hypothetical answer. Over a century ago there was rivalry between two French research scientists who apparently had too much time on their hands. The first was
Stacey Rudin aier.org Carl Sagan famously said, “the cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.” This wisdom has been sadly forsaken during the COVID-19 pandemic, when one powerful narrative has taken not only the public but the scientific community, by storm. The
AIER Staff aier.org From October 1-4, 2020, the American Institute for Economic Research hosted a remarkable meeting of top epidemiologists, economists, and journalists, to discuss the global emergency created by the unprecedented use of state compulsion in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The result is The Great Barrington
If there’s one silver lining of the Wuhan Plague, it’s that the fallacy of computer modelling has been stripped bare for all who care to see. Over-reliance on modelling has been one of the biggest factors in the snowballing crisis in modern science (alongside a broken peer-review system
If Albert Einstein (apocryphally) thought “human stupidity” was infinite, that’s only because he didn’t live long enough to encounter Trump Derangement Syndrome. To be fair, TDS is merely a special brand of stupid. But its stupidity is so infinite that it leaves nothing untouched. Not even innocent medications.
Francis Forde P-hacking, HARKing, outcome switching, and Salami-slicing. Despite sounding like a list of manoeuvres to improve your sexual prowess, the research practices depicted by these terms paint a much less alluring picture. In his new book Science Fictions, Kings College lecturer Stuart Ritchie discusses the many shameful research practices
Ideologues love to defend their passing obsessions, from transgenderism to catastrophic climate extinction, by shrieking, “It’s SCIENCE!” Do you doubt that a male can be a female? “Listen to the science!” If you also dare harbour the niggling suspicion that the Wuhan virus might not be quite the Black
