The Logic of Science

The “backfire effect” is a psychological phenomenon in which correcting misinformation actually reinforces the false view rather than causing someone to reject it (Nyhan and Reifler 2010). This topic comes a lot in the comments on this and other pro-science … Continue reading →

“Science used to say that smoking was safe, so why should we ‘trust the science’ when it says that vaccines are safe and effective, climate change is real, or GMOs are safe?” This is one of the most common excuses … Continue reading →

The evidence for anthropogenic climate change is overwhelming, but the inherent complexity of the climate can make it difficult to communicate the science to the public. The basic concept is simple enough (CO2 traps heat, we have increased the CO2 … Continue reading →

Evolution is, in my opinion, the most fascinating topic in all of science. It provides elegant, compelling, and enthralling answers for everything we observe in biology. It really is true that nothing in biology makes sense without evolution. Unfortunately, not … Continue reading →

Lately, my Facebook page has been flooded with people insisting that  “no vaccine is tested against a placebo” (sometimes stated with additional qualifiers like “double-blind” or “saline placebo”). This claim, like so many anti-vaccer claims, is blatantly false. Nevertheless, I … Continue reading →

In recent conversations on this page, I have been struck by just how intellectually lazy science-deniers usually are. This is hardly a novel observation, but I think it bears discussion. I also want to note that this sort of lazy … Continue reading →

COVID19 presented an unprecedented challenge for modern science/medicine. Faced with a novel infectious disease, doctors, scientists, and health officials rose to the challenge in remarkable speed. That rate at which we went from never having heard of COVID19 to having … Continue reading →

I want to briefly discuss a logical fallacy that is surprisingly common, despite being so obviously absurd. I suspect that most people committing this fallacy do so without ever actually contemplating what they are saying, and it is my hope … Continue reading →

Yesterday, I posted the fairly innocuous image above on the TLoS Facebook page, and the results were both fascinating and horrifying. Numerous people took time out of their day to embarrass themselves by doubling down and attacking fact-checkers, often with … Continue reading →

Before you start reading, open worldometers.info and take a screenshot (this will give you the world population right now; we’ll come back to it later). Our world is facing enormous environmental challenges. Climate change is roaring forward at a terrifying … Continue reading →

“Placebo effect” is a term that almost everyone knows but few seem to understand. Misconceptions about placebo effects are rampant and usually center around the idea that a placebo effect occurs when you feel better because you thought a treatment … Continue reading →

It is an indisputable scientific fact that the average global sea level is increasing. Nevertheless, numerous memes and posts on the internet claim to have photographic proof that sea level rise (and by extension, global climate change) is a hoax. … Continue reading →

The COVID era has been a golden age of misinformation. It has seen the development of innumerable false claims and shoddy arguments, and it has breathed new life into ancient anti-vaccine tropes. Indeed, I find it impossible to make any … Continue reading →

This is going to be a relatively short post because I only have one simple point that I want to make. Namely, “balance” does not mean presenting conspiracy theories and nonsense alongside facts as if they are equivalent. This is … Continue reading →

Concern over unknown, future side effects is by far the most common reason I hear people give for why they aren’t vaccinating against COVID. At a quick glance, that may seem reasonable, but when you start really looking into the … Continue reading →

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the argument that “99% of COVID patients survive” has been repeatedly used as an excuse to oppose public health measures including mask mandates, lockdowns, and, more recently, vaccines. It asserts that because COVID has a ~99% … Continue reading →

I’ve been a fan of Jon Stewart for a long time. I usually find him to be both funny and insightful. It was, therefore, with great dismay that I watched him spread a conspiracy theory and inaccuracies about science on … Continue reading →

The title of this post is written somewhat in jest because this is not a formally recognized fallacy; nevertheless, it is a very common line of reasoning that is logically flawed and very closely aligned with multiple fallacies. The argument, … Continue reading →

Invoking the precautionary principle is a favorite tactic of anti-vaccers, anti-GMO activists, and various other groups that are prone to opposing scientific advances, but there are numerous issues with this strategy. The exact definition of the precautionary principle is a … Continue reading →

We seem to be living in the golden age of misinformation, and while cognitive biases and motivated reasoning have always existed, they seem to have reached epidemic levels in recent years, with attacks on the very nature of facts coming … Continue reading →