Simon Singh on Evan Harris.

Simon Singh circulated the following message via his mailing list, regarding Dr Evan Harris, one of the newest members of our Editorial Advisory Board and MP for Oxford West and Abingdon.
 

Hello Everyone,

Apologies for the mass mailing, but you are receiving this email because you are either a scientist or a skeptic or someone connected with Oxford, or maybe all three. I am writing because you might be able to help British science by helping Evan Harris MP to retain his seat in parliament.

Along with Richard Dawkins, AC Grayling, Colin Blakemore, Lisa Appignanesi and many others, I am supporting the campaign to keep Dr Evan Harris in Parliament as a voice for science, secularism and free expression.

Evan has been the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West & Abingdon since May 1997 and he is the Lib Dem spokesman for science. But our support for him is not party political; and it goes beyond the interests of his constituency. Indeed, you can see further below a long list of the vital issues that Evan has championed.

Ordinarily, Evan should be safe at the election, but boundary changes and an aggressive campaign to unseat him mean that we might be about to lose science's best friend in Parliament.

Continue reading

    Andy Lewis & Simon Singh discuss homeopathy & #ten23

    Simon Singh (author of ‘Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial‘) and Andy Lewis discuss the homeopathy and the overdose event organised by the 10:23 campaign, on 30th January 2010 in Red Lion Square, Holborn, London.

    Thanks to Dr Stephen Law of CFI UK for the footage

    CFI also have an event on Saturday 6th March titled “Monsters vs Aliens“, featuring three experts on UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch.



      Sceptical suicide attempt, nationwide: Updated

      10:23 logo

      At 10:23am on Saturday 30th January, over 300 individuals from branches of Skeptics in the Pub will simultaneously consume an overdose of commercially available homeopathic medicines. The nationwide protest, organised by the 10:23 campaign from Merseyside Skeptics, will either unfold as one of the largest mass suicides since Jonestown, or will yet again confirm that science, evidence and rational thought actually do work.

      The confirmed locations of the overdoses are as follows:

      UK

      Birmingham: High Street

      Edinburgh: Secret Location

      Glasgow: Tie Rack in Central Station

      London: Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn

      Leeds: Leeds Mainline Rail Station, main entrance at 9.30-10 am

      Australia
      Sydney: Queen Victoria Building, York and Druitt Street
      USA
      Portland, Orgeon

      Immediately after the protest, Dr Simon Singh, Prof. John Garrow and Andy Lewis will take to the stage of London’s Conway Hall for Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial, the first event in 2010 from CFI UK.

      The protest, comes after a Boots representative, Paul Bennett, attracted ridicule from the national press after admitting to a parliamentary select committee last month that Boots knowingly sells homeopathic remedies to the public for which it has no evidence of effectiveness. The Science and Technology Select Committee are due to release their report on homeopathy around the time of the protest, at the end of January.

      While dispensing sugar pills may seem harmless, in reality the endorsement of homeopathic potions by leading health providers can have grave consequences. As well as potentially undermining trust in medicine and medical advice, customers may be misled into believing that they are treating their illness – for example a Panorama investigation famously revealed that homeopaths were advising customers to take ineffective pills in place of Malaria prophylactics on holiday. In extreme cases, such as the ‘healing therapist’ Russell Jenkins, deaths may occur.

      The 10:23 Campaign, so named in recognition of
      Avogadro’s Constant (the limit of dilution which is exceeded by homeopathic preparations) aims to raise awareness of homeopathy and its basis within long-discredited 18th century pseudoscience, selling remedies to the public which have no scientific basis and no credible evidence for its efficacy beyond the placebo effect.

      As ever, this is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate JREF’s Law (namely ”there is no topic of parapsychological discussion upon which James Randi has failed to comment”) by directing attention to Randi’s lecture at Princeton in 2001, which contained the following segment on homeopathy. Randi’s commentary in 2002 for the BBC is worth reading also.

        New Year events for Center for Inquiry UK: alternative medicine, aliens & more

        Dr Stephen Law, CFI provost and Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) member for The Skeptic Magazine (UK) has announced the first two London events for CFI UK’s New Year programme.

        Scheduled for January 30th 2010, the first event will involve fellow EAB members Dr Simon Singh and Andy Lewis, joining Prof. John Garrow in a critical discussion of alternative medicine. The second event, scheduled for 6th March 2010 returns to the theme of the unexplained, with former Ministry of Defence project head Nick Pope speaking about UFOs, Adrian Shine speaking about the Loch Ness monster, and Paul Vella speaking about his work as Britain’s leading expert on Sasquatch.

        Full details are available from the CFI UK website (http://www.cfiuk.org) and from The Skeptic Magazine’s events pages (http://skeptic.org.uk/events)

        CFI UK has also kindly extended free invitations for both events to Skeptic Magazine (UK) and New Humanist subscribers, Friends of CFI UK, GHLA, SPES, and BHA members. Booking in advance is recommended, however.