Clutch

Thomas Gilovich's wonderful How We Know What Isn't So might be a little on the difficult side, but not much. I recommend having a look at it.

Wyrdsmyth

Great idea.

It should be required reading for all high school students.

Mecha_Dude

While the students should read chapters 1-12 maybe all the science teachers should read chapters 19- on why american science education is so bad.

Farren

Slightly off topics but Bugs, you've put dissimilar things in the same category. Homeopathy and acupuncture shouldn't appear on your list.

Mediums, psychics, astrologers and creationists can neither demonstrate the validity of thier claims nor logically explain the foundations of these claims.

Homeopaths and acupunture practitioners (partially) can't logically explain the foundations of thier claims, but they can demonstrate that they work.

This is almost beyond questioning even by skeptics in many parts of the world. A lot of learned doctors schooled in conventional medicine agree on the effecacy of both practices.

I have on my lap at the moment a book on homeopathy by two very well trained doctors. Take a look at thier CV's:

Dr Andrew Lockie got a medical degree at Aberdeen University, then specialised in obstetrics and gynecology. He went on to study homeopathy at the Royal London Homeopathic Institution (A government funded British institution). He is a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Dr Nicola Geddes - Medical degree Edinburgh University, postgraduate training in Nutrition at Kings College, London. Spent six years as a general practitioner then began work at the Turnbridge Wells homeopathic facility.

With respect, I've met GP's, chiropracters and even child psychiatrists who swear by acupuncture/acupressure and homeopathy.

Saying something hasn't been explained is one thing. Saying it hasn't been demonstrated is another.

Dominus Paradoxum

Sorry Farren, but homeopathy has been demonstrated not to work any better than a placebo. If you want to see the studies which indicate such, I'm sure someone here can back me up.

Anti-Materialist

There have been a few published studies showing efficacy for homeopathy - even one in the Lancet.

As a medical news producer, I had to report on one such study. It got really confusing. It was exceedingly difficult to explain why a study could show effect, and be wrong. This sort of thing shakes public confidence is scientific medicine as a whole, because people then ask - "Well, if that study was bogus, even though it shows an effect and was double-blinded, then couldn't other such studies be bogus?" Explaining that studies must be replicable to prove something gets lost on Joe Public.

I must confess that I personally just don't believe in homeopathy. It makes no sense. The fact that they demonstrated results in a study is not necessarily proof.

1) A certain percentage of studies will show efficacy when there is no efficacy, just by chance. If you only highlight the studies that show effect, and ignore the studies that show no effect, it will look effective even when it isn't.

2) If you look on Pubmed, you will find studies on homeopathy that show no effect. These, of course, get less attention.

3) The placebo effect is very powerful. We don't understand it. Sometimes it involves effects that defy our understanding of human physiology. Nevertheless, it is a real effect. Nearly all treatments include a measure of the placebo effect, even though they also include a genuine physical or chemical effect. Thus, a large portion of homeopathy's effectiveness is bound to be placebo, even if it isn't all placebo. This deliberate use of the placebo effect makes homeopathy seem effective to Joe Consumer. This makes it seem far more valid than is warranted by the evidence, in Joe Consumer's mind. Incidentally, this same problem is an issue with Prozac and some other anti-depressants, where the actual effect size is very small.

Nikolai

I am a high school student at the Math and Science Center and, sadly, the teachers have failed to teach critical thinking. One teacher brifly discussed what makes a good theory, but not once have we implemented the stuff we learned about the scientific method to debunk claims nor have we studied such important concepts as double-blind tests.

Though the school is the best in the state, I still feel that more emphasis should be placed on critical thinking. I can only imagine the horrible state of science education in other schools

JGL53

Here's a reference to the metastudy published in Lancet:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract


Weird. Essentially, one placebo scored over twice a well as another placebo.

I say placebo because that is what a prepared homeopathic solution is - there is NO active ingredient in it. And THAT is THE definition of a placebo.

Granted, a claim is made that there exists some alleged "memory", non-defined "energy", or "electronic structural change" left behind from when the active ingredient had been there IN THE PAST. As I said, weird - very, very weird - bizarre even.

Yep, more research needs to be done. The question that screams for a definitive answer is "If there is nothing there, then what is there?".

NumberTenOx

Snow,

One topic you might take up with your students is urban legends. Studying them would be fun and educational, and leading them to sites like TruthorFiction.com would help them sort through the myths and legends that endlessly circulate the internet.

On homeopathy: The bunk about "water memory": I shudder to think of what my tap water "remembers".