One of the reasons I love science so much is that it gives you the tools to find answers to questions. Asking good questions is one of the most important skills a scientist will learn. A scientific question is one that can be investigated; one that has the possibility of being answered. A question that …
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Category:Scepticism
Gravity Powered Light…
A pair of designers based in London has raised $200,000 towards developing their design for a gravity powered lamp – GravityLight. The idea is that these can be used in communities where access to electricity is restricted. As you may remember from our lessons spent running up flights of stairs, gravitational potential energy (Joule) = …
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Counting Dilemma…
I told 5C today, after we had watched a video about the brain (which I will also post here soon), that everything we see, hear or otherwise experience is generated by our brains and cannot always be trusted. The scientific method allows us to determine what evidence can be trusted by filtering out the biases that …
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Neuroscience & Magic…
Whilst listening to The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe on my way down to my house in France, I was particularly pleased that they interviewed Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde. They are a married couple who work at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, where they study visual, sensory and cognitive neuroscience. They are …
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An Honest Thief…
Seeing May Or May Not Be Believing…
I have posted a few times here about how our brains are not to be trusted (such as this post or this post.) I was sent this amazing illusion today via Professor Bruce Hood which he found on Brusspup’s YouTube channel (which also has several other incredible videos.) This is not a camera trick but a genuine quirk of brain function. What we …
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Don’t Trust Your Eyes…
Seeing is believing. Or is it? I enjoyed the two pictures below from Richard Wiseman’s blog and thought I would post them here. The first one is a cleverly cut-away portrait, whilst the second is an animated gif image. Click on the image below to open it in a new window, then stare at the black …
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Crop Circles…
. Above you will see some lovely pictures of crop circles – almost exclusively in Wiltshire not far from where my father farms. They are amazing structures and like many things in life, hard to fathom at first glance. Fortunately, we know exactly how they are produced. Doug Bower and David Chorley admit to hoaxing …
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Occam’s Razor…
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. So said William of Ockham (1285–1349) and I am sure we would all agree! This phrase became known as Occam’s Razor and it is a very important concept in science and scepticism. In simple terms, Occam’s Razor is the idea that when you are looking for an explanation for …
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Dilution Dilemma…
This is the big science news of the day, although some people may question why, in 2010, it is any sort of news at all. A group called the Merseyside Skeptics Society started a campaign called 1023 to raise awareness about homeopathy. Homeopathy is a widely used alternative medicine and it is seen by many as …
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