AUTHOR

Mike Hall

Mike Hall is a software engineer and Doctor Who fan, not in that order. He is the producer and host of the long-running podcast Skeptics with a K, part of the organising committee for the award winning skeptical conference QED, and on the board of the Merseyside Skeptics Society.

What little you know about Jack the Ripper’s victims is almost certainly wrong

Despite all of the sensationalised coverage of the murders of Jack the Ripper, his victims are seldom more than an afterthought in history

Phantom Time Hypothesis – the supposedly ‘missing’ fortnight in 1752

When the calendar skipped two weeks in 1752, the cause wasn't 'phantom time', but the incompatibility of the Julian and Gregorian calendars

The sinking of the Titanic wasn’t a crafty insurance con, it was a real tragedy

Theories that the Titanic never sank, and that it was switched for another ship as part of an insurance con, ignore irrefutable counter-evidence

If we take away the statistical quirks and biases, is there any placebo effect left?

Once you eliminate well-understood elements like bias and regression to the mean, there's no remarkable placebo effect left to explain

The Online Safety Act doesn’t make our children any safer

The Online Safety Act may be well-intentioned, but it is a fundamentally flawed attempt to legislate away a complex social issue.

Polybius: the legendary video game that never actually existed

According to legend, Polybius was a highly addictive 1981 arcade game developed by a shadowy game studio called Sinneslöschen... but it didn't exist

No, placebos probably aren’t getting stronger over time

Placebo responses have not gotten stronger over the past 30 years – trials are just better at isolating treatment effects from noise

Supplements and garlic won’t cure the common cold, despite what the BBC say

The BBC reported on home remedies to fight the common cold – but what they gave us were weak, biased, and p-hacked studies
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