#QEDCON is coming up soon and they still have a few tickets available

On 14-16th Oct the grassroots skeptic conference, QEDCon, is taking place in Manchester, UK. Initially started in 2011 by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, in conjunction with the Greater Manchester Skeptics Society, it has been running each and every year. It is a quite mind-expanding weekend, I can personally vouch for that. To attend, it costs £99 … Read more

Christian Guidance: “How to respond to Bible skeptics who challenge our faith”

If you are a Christian who has found this posting via google, I should perhaps advise up-front, that this is a skeptics reply to an Article within Christian Post. So the story here is that the title caught my eye and being the curious individual that I am, I thought I’d take a quick peek. … Read more

You can be fooled by Sciencey sounding stuff

So I attended a great talk last night that took place at Reading Skeptics in the Pub by Matt Parker, a mathematician, stand-up comedian, and skeptic. It sounded fun, and even if the maths went zooming over the heads of all, the standup comedy would still make it worth attending. It was indeed great fun, and Matt … Read more

Tickets now on sale for #QEDCon in 2015

Once again the fabulous QEDCon returns, and tickets are now on sale. What the heck is QEDCon? Starting in February 2011 the Merseyside Skeptics Society, in conjunction with the Greater Manchester Skeptics Society, began organising and presenting an annual two-day skeptical science festival, QED: Question. Explore. Discover … and that is what is going to … Read more

Booted out of AutismOne

The AutismOne conference was greatly disrupted by a couple of skeptics who jumped up on stage carrying banners proclaiming “Death of all purveyors of Woo”, so they were ejected … er no, that is not quite right, so let us step back and get the facts right.

AutismOne is woo central for the anti-vax movement, this is the conference for the folks who believe that Vaccines cause Autism. There is one little problem with that belief, it is not true, there is no evidence for it. Many studies have been conducted and all conclude “No evidence”. Much of the current anti-vaccine hype comes from a chap called Andrew Wakefield who wrote a paper that linked vaccines to Autism, but a few serious problems later emerged. He had huge financial conflicts of interest and he also faked the data, so his paper was redacted and he was struck off the medical register for ethics violations (he cannot call himself a Dr in the UK anymore). So how did the AutismOne folks react when this happened last year? They gave him an award. Now that in itself tells you all you need to know about the credibility and ethics of these folks.

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