Skip to content

Science

How Not to Get Fooled: Graphs

How Not to Get Fooled: Graphs

Data visualisations – “graphs”, to the unitiated – have been an incredibly useful tool for cutting through the fog of bias and misunderstanding to get at the facts. One of the most famous early data visualisations was John Snow’s graph plotting every case in the infamous Broad Street cholera outbreak of

Members Public
The Race for Private Enterprise Space

The Race for Private Enterprise Space

I grew up on science fiction stories like Robert Heinlein’s Rocketship Galileo, the story of a plucky band of tech-savvy entrepreneurs (teenagers, no less – plus one token adult, their physicist uncle) who build a pioneering moon-rocket. It’s stirring stuff, complete with Space Nazis (it was written in the

Members Public
An Open Letter on the “Science” of the Coronavirus Pandemic

An Open Letter on the “Science” of the Coronavirus Pandemic

[Editors Note: This is an English translation of the original letter so some of the phrases are not quite right] The “science” of the Pandemic During this pandemic, the term “science” has been used “ad nauseam”, that is, has been repeated to exhaustion: “Science, science, science”, “I’m pro-science”, “For

Members Public
Utter Nonsense in a Medical Journal

Utter Nonsense in a Medical Journal

The once-esteemed Lancet has long taken a leftward-bent trajectory and that’s why, call me cynical if you like, before reading any editorial content published by the outfit I recommend a grain of salt at the ready. In the course of the last week-and-a-bit, that journal of medicine published two

Members Public
It Really Is Plant Food

It Really Is Plant Food

Way back when, when I was still wet enough behind the ears to be a fully-fledged catastrophic climate change believer (yes, readers – my secret shame is laid bare!), the fossil fuel lobby released an ad praising carbon dioxide. “They call it pollution. We call it life,” went the tag line,

Members Public
Siouxie Does Facts

Siouxie Does Facts

On Monday I was enlightened by Siouxie, ‘cos Siouxie does facts, and this week she informed us that “Videos like these are endangering lives”. What videos, you may ask? Videos recommending the use of power saws for haircuts, perhaps? Videos with instructions for making gunpowder in your bedroom? Well; no.

Members Public
COVID-19 and Yet More Bad Science

COVID-19 and Yet More Bad Science

Many commentators have observed that the public health, social and economic havoc wreaked by the Xi Plague are a sneak preview of the kind of world we could expect should Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg have their way. But the COVID-19 world has something else in common with climate alarmism:

Members Public
Another Scientist Rejects Lockdowns

Another Scientist Rejects Lockdowns

Do we really need any more evidence that lockdowns are perhaps the most pernicious snake-oil sold to a panicked citizenry since the Millennium Bug? At least the Millennium Bug panic left behind some upgraded computer systems. The Chinese virus panic seems to bequeath us nothing but ruined economies and generations

Members Public
What You Need to Know about COVID-19 Serology

What You Need to Know about COVID-19 Serology

Simon Thornley covidplanb.co.nz Why does New Zealand need a serosurvey? New Zealand urgently needs to test for antibodies to COVID-19. The standard test for COVID-19 at present is a genetic test that only detects whether or not the virus is currently in the body. Serology is a test

Members Public
Murder-Mystery: Researcher Killed Working on COVID-19 Vaccine

Murder-Mystery: Researcher Killed Working on COVID-19 Vaccine

Better than a fictional murder mystery, the murder of researcher Bing Liu beats any Agatha Christie plot. Christie doesn’t reveal the most pertinent information about the motive for murder until the end of the book, which is both irritating and a deterrent to reading her books. In contrast to

Members Public
Why Should We Take Any Notice of These Clowns?

Why Should We Take Any Notice of These Clowns?

As civil resistance (or, at the very least, social media grumbling) to COVID–19 lockdowns grows louder, the bootlicking types are scrambling to defend the Soviet-lite technocracy we’ve suddenly found ourselves living under. “Listen to the experts!” they bleat. “Trust the science!” “Science” is the great fetish of modern

Members Public
It’s Official: God’s Own Country Is Now an Oligarchy.

It’s Official: God’s Own Country Is Now an Oligarchy.

We used to have a democracy, long ago, with institutions robust and whose advice, although not always reliable, was reasoned and open to scrutiny. We had excellent epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists carefully preparing reports displaying methods, workings and conclusions, citing references numerous. One such example was “Potential Health Impacts

Members Public
COVID-19: Science Should Come First & Policy Second

COVID-19: Science Should Come First & Policy Second

Simon Thornley covidplanb.co.nz With much journalistic ink spilled over COVID-19, it is easy to forget that our policies of lockdown and social distancing are based on a belief about the lethality of the virus and its spread. This belief comes from interpreting evidence. Currently, two main ideas predominate.

Members Public