Association for Rational Inquiry (UK)
A UK resource for science, reason and critical thinking
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The Open University Hay Festival 2013
From the Open University to all followers and students:
Hay Festival 23 May – 2 June 2013
The Open University is delighted to be working in association with the Hay Festival again this year with three events being held during the programme on Saturday 25 May. The festival, in its 26th year, is packed full of debates and conversations with poets and scientists, novelists and historians, artists and gardeners, comedians and musicians, film makers and politicians:
Fake bomb detector seller James McCormick jailed
Fraudster James McCormick, 57, of Langport, Somerset has been jailed for 10 years for selling fake bomb detectors.
See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22380368
The bomb detectors were basically dowsing devices. They consisted of a handle with a freely swinging antenna that would allegedly point to its target when it was present. The actual action of the device, which had no power source or working electronics, was caused by ideomotor action.
Supermarkets must stop scaremongering
"Supermarkets are pandering to misplaced consumer fears about the health risks of of widely used food ingredients in a cynical marketing move, a group representing young scientists has warned."
See: http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/
The Voice of Young Science (VoYS) has written a letter to the leading supermarkets raising concerns about their use of misleading and scaremongering claims in their advertising which only serve to reinforce consumers' misconceptions about food and risk.
In the wake of the measles outbreak in Swansea, concern has been growing about whether people have not only been avoiding vaccinating their children because of unfounded scaremongering in the press but also because they're choosing so-called 'alternative vaccinations' such as homeopathic vaccinations (or 'nosodes').
Pressure has been put on their representative bodies, not least by Sarah Wollaston MP, to issue statements clarifying their position on vaccination. Here is a statement from the Faculty of Homeopathy:
Homeopathy Awareness Week 2013
April 10th to 16th 2013 sees the annual event that is known as 'World Homeopathy Awareness Week'. Normally awareness promotion campaigns are done in order to benefit the public in some way. e.g. promoting awareness of symptoms of breast or testicular cancer. However, this awareness campaign is run by homeopaths for the benefit of, well, homeopaths. This 'awareness week' is really nothing more than an advertising campaign.
However, I do think it is worth the general public becoming more aware of homeopathy and the reality behind the claims homeopaths make. After all, homeopathy is being sold as medicine.
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