Month: April 2012

Brief Announcement: World Skeptics Congress

The 6th World Skeptics Congress will be held on May 18-20 in Berlin, Germany. Topics will include: Why do people turn to pseudoscience for help? What makes alternative medicine so attractive – and how can we find out what really works? Why is it so difficult for us to deal with risk and uncertainty in a rational way? Can we teach children to...

/ April 2, 2012

Autism prevalence: Now estimated to be one in 88, and the antivaccine movement goes wild

Editor’s Note: Some of you might have seen this before, but it’s an important (and timely) enough topic that I figure it’s worth exposing to a different audience. It’s been updated and edited to style for SBM. Enjoy. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned that I can always—and I do mean always—rely on from the antivaccine movement, it’s that its members...

/ April 2, 2012

Are Cell Phones a Possible Carcinogen? An Update on the IARC Report

EDITOR’S NOTE: Because I am at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Chicago, between the meetings, working on a policy statement, working on a manuscript, and various other miscellaneous tasks, I alas was unable to produce a post worthy of the quality normally expected by SBM readers. Fortunately, Lorne Trottier, who’s done a great job for us...

/ April 2, 2012

Integrative Fire-Fighting

Having a housefire is a one of the most stressful, dehumanizing experiences a family can experience. Like cancer, fires appear unexpectedly, and fill victims with fear, grief, and hopelessness. Western firefighting methods do not adequately meet the needs of these victims. No one knows your house as well as you do, yet firefighters take a very paternalistic approach, removing you from the...

/ April 1, 2012