The Reason Stick

Wednesday, 14 April 2010

Skeptic Trumps: Sid Rodrigues

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Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Skeptic Trumps: Derek & Swoopy

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Skeptic Trumps: Michael Shermer

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The Conservative Science Policy

Here is an extract from page 11 of the Conservative Party manifesto published today.

"Make Britain the leading hi-tech exporter in Europe

We will implement key recommendations from Sir James Dyson’s Review into how to achieve our goal of making Britain Europe’s leading hi-tech exporter, including:
encouraging the establishment of joint university-business research and development institutes;
initiating a multi-year Science and Research Budget to provide a stable investment climate for Research Councils;
creating a better focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects in schools; and,
establishing a new prize for engineering.
Research and development tax credits will be improved and refocused on hi-tech companies, small businesses and new start-ups. At the same time, we will give strong backing to the growth industries that generate high-quality
jobs around the country.

We will improve the performance of UK Trade and Investment with a renewed focus on high priority sectors and markets where the return on taxpayers’ money is highest. We will regularly compare government support for exporters and inward investment against the services provided by our competitors. We will work for the successful conclusion of the Doha trade round and support bilateral free trade negotiations between the European Union (EU) and other countries."

After reading this through several times, I think what Tories plan to do to improve UK Science is to:

Give a trophy to the school or university who can design the cheapest bagless vacuum cleaner and then flog them to the French.

Brilliant. Well done Mr Cameron.

Monday, 12 April 2010

Cancer Danger from Reading Cancer Scare Stories in the Daily Mail

Simply reading the cancer scare stories in the Daily Mail can itself cause changes that might lead to cancer, scientists claim.

Researchers in the UK and America have linked an increased risk in brain cancer from reading the Mail’s pseudo-scientific cancer scare stories. The tests were carried out on a mouse at the University of Southern California by Professor Denzil Dexter.

“We took one mouse and placed him in a cage with nothing but a copy of the Daily Mail featuring an article about how befriending buxom ladies on facebook causes an increased risk of cancer. As a control we insured that no water, food or anything else was present in the environment that could contaminant the result.”

When Professor Dexter returned to the cage the following week, the mouse had died. There were no physical marks on the mouse’s body proving beyond doubt that it must have died from cancer.

Professor Dexter added: “These latest findings are preliminary research and we are now looking into this area in more detail”, however we do not intend to report on the further research if the experiments turn out to be negative.