It came to my attention recently that some of my friends were not aware of the Sokal Hoax. I recommend that you check out the Wikipedia article on it as this provides not only an extensive discussion of the event itself, but also a look at the subsequent discussion that the hoax generated, but I’ll quickly summarise what happened here.
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Category: Skepticism
Correactology – a very Canadian woo
I was carrying out some fieldwork in northern Ontario last summer, which involved trips to Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie and North Bay. Each day while staying in Sault Ste Marie, we would drive past a small, squat building with a sign outside announcing the presence of a “Correactology Centre”. I had no idea what that was and made a mental note to look it up. I was surprised that when I googled “correactology” there wasn’t even a Wikipedia page! It didn’t bother me that much as I had assumed that it was some obscure form of alternative therapy. I was correct, but it is a little bit more interesting than that. Unlike many forms of complementary and alternative medicine, correactology (TM) is new. Not only that, but it is Canadian, with the headquarters based in Sudbury, Ontario, and there is also a branch in Ottawa, making this a local matter!
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Rubber bands on Groupon – Redux
The skeptical movement is all about consumer protection, especially when people are being ripped off with woo-related paraphernalia. I’ve mentioned balance bands being sold on group-buy websites twice now. Well, it turns out that Groupon cancelled the deal because they realised that it was an absolute scam! Read More »
Negative ions and health (a review)
So I mentioned a few new expensive rubber band scams in a previous post and have been promising a review of negative ions for a week or two. Well, here it is (and it’s a bit of a monster…)!
More expensive rubber bands
I was taking a week off blogging to catch up on other projects, but I couldn’t help but highlight two “new” scams…
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Homeopathic elephants…
People who know about me within the skeptical community know that I am no friend of homeopathy. However, there are some cases where the sheer stupidity of an idea can limit the damage that it can cause.
“Harmony bands”, bovine excrement on Groupon…
I subscribe to Groupon which often has some fairly interesting and cheap deals. Companies offer discounts so long as a certain number of people order the deal. Often it features beauty treatments, yoga, massage, restaurant deals or shopping discounts. Today, however, they decided to go all-out woo…
Debunking Chris Hassall
Occasionally I google myself. A slightly narcissistic habit, I know, but we all do it… Satisfyingly, most of the results are about me (and rightly so!). However, there is one result that always bugs me: “Welcome to Chris Hassall · a LifeSuccess Consultant“. Not only does he appear on the first page of results, but he also has the domain name “www.chrishassall.com”! So I perused his site and wasn’t impressed.
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Evolution of superstition
I posted a few days ago about a trip that I took down to the Polaris Sci-Fi Convention in Toronto. Since I have a full 45 minute talk all laid out I figured I would give a little bit more detail about the topic.
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In search of Nessy
I discussed the application of “climate space envelope models” (also known as “species distribution models” or “ecological niche models”) to Sasquatch in an earlier post. While I was writing that post I was racking my brain trying to remember a scientific paper on the Loch Ness Monster… I distinctly remembered hearing about it in an undergraduate course but didn’t have any record of it in my notes. The good news is I found the paper! In fact, I found several!
Katatrepsis 