Category: Science

Columns on science and scientific reasoning, often focusing on examples of pseudoscience that reach the popular media.

Food marketing to children, and the responsibilities of parents

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date November 15, 2017
Categories In Science

The Vitality ObeCity Index 2017 (pdf), released in October, “analysed data from Vitality members living in six cities across South Africa” in order to present an overview of South African eating trends and health statistics. The report describes some positive trends, while highlighting that “we still have a lot to do to combat obesity”.

I contributed three opinion pieces on science communication, the food industry and marketing to children, and the importance of consumers making informed choices. Here’s the last of the three contributions.

Sugar, the food industry, marketing and informed consumer choice

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date November 13, 2017
Categories In Science

Chourico Gm Food Genetically Modified Food Banana

I contributed three opinion pieces on science communication, the food industry and marketing to children, and the importance of consumers making informed choices. Here’s the second of the three, with the last to follow in the coming days.

Public science communication and the PURE diet study

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date November 9, 2017
Categories In Science

I contributed three opinion pieces on science communication, the food industry and marketing to children, and the importance of consumers making informed choices. Here’s the first of the three, with the others to follow in the coming days.

Lore of Nutrition – Prof. Tim Noakes and Marika Sboros

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date November 4, 2017
Categories In Science, Skepticism

One good thing about the just-released “Lore of Nutrition“, documenting the campaign (allegedly) orchestrated by myself and others against an A-rated Professor with thousand of citations, hundreds of articles, many books, regular international speaking gigs, and constant (fawning) media coverage is that it leaves you in no doubt as to who the victim is (spoiler alert: it’s the celebrity scientist).

Noakes: eat pandas, not plants

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date October 4, 2017
Categories In Science, Skepticism

I haven’t been inclined to write anything about Professor Noakes for a good long while. In fact, even as he carried on encouraging vaccine scepticism on Twitter, or being dogmatic about sugar ‘addiction’, or citing the likes of Mercola and the Weston A. Price Foundation as if they were credible, I thought I’d said enough, and kept quiet.

6 snappy comebacks to “6 snappy comebacks for sugar sceptics”

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date March 14, 2017
Categories In Science, Skepticism

Before anyone else says it, yes, I know the title over-promises. Snappy comebacks aren’t exactly my thing, because they are typically simple-minded and reductionist responses to issues that are, to borrow Dr. Ben Goldacre’s line, “more complicated than that”.

Vaccines and false balance

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date February 17, 2017
Categories In Science, Skepticism

As anyone who reads Synapses would know, I’m a proponent of scientific skepticism. What that means is something along the lines of “the practice or project of studying paranormal and pseudoscientific claims through the lens of science and critical scholarship, and then sharing the results with the public“ (from Daniel Loxton’s 2013 essay, “Why is there a skeptical movement?).

Skepticism should not be conflated with hyperskepticism, as Caleb Lack and I argue in our book on critical thinking. So, it doesn’t (necessarily) mean believing in chemtrails, or Big Pharma deliberately poisoning you, or your cellphone making you infertile (it’s a bit of a pity that that one isn’t true, actually).

Gender dysphoria and gender reassignment

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date February 7, 2017
Categories In General, Morality, Science

A journalist friend recently asked me for comment on the issue of gender reassignment, and as usual, I went overboard. Given that only a few sentences of what I provided will make it into her piece, here’s a longer version of my take on some of the ethical issues involved with hormone treatment or gender reassignment surgery for under-18s.

The Huffington Post and your masturbatory co-workers

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date January 13, 2017
Categories In Culture, Science, Skepticism

This post isn’t about “fake news“, a term which has gone from useful to meaningless in a record time. It’s about nonsense published as if it’s news, and about the willingness on the part of some publications (okay, one in this case) to take a published piece of nonsense and then make it even worse in order to get you to visit their website.

“Post-truth” doesn’t have to mean factual relativism

Post author By Jacques Rousseau
Post date December 19, 2016
Categories In Science

Most pieces about the “post-fact” or “post-truth” world express concern regarding the possibility that it’s now commonplace – or even somehow acceptable – to make stuff up instead of offering arguments and evidence for your claims.

My contribution to the discussion was to point out that truth has never mattered as much as we might prefer. But the fact that people don’t care to (or find it difficult to) escape their filter bubbles doesn’t need to entail giving up on facts and the truth entirely.