Homeopathy: Useless, Dishonest and Unethical

Brian Cox was not faced with the toughest audiences at the Old Monk in Westminster last night. His talk was delivered to Westminster Skeptics; an assorted rabble of scientists, sceptics, bloggers and journalists led by legal blogger Jack of Kent, who meet once a month to discuss issues dear to rationalists. Brian's message - that science funding must be protected and ideally increased - was not a particularly hard one to sell to such an audience.

Continuing reading here or, read an edited version at New Scientist

It's fair to say that 2010 hasn't been a vintage year for homeopathy so far. At the end of January, a mass public 'overdose' by critics aiming to demonstrate the fact that homeopathic remedies contain no active ingredients received widespread coverage. Weeks later, the Science & Technology Select Committee released a report that damned not just homeopathy, but the homeopaths themselves, ultimately concluding that homeopathy works no better than placebo, and that NHS funding for the alternative medicine should be scrapped.

Welcome to the first edition of Election Watch, an irregular evidence-based look at the coming General Election.

I'll be working on a major new project relating to the election in the next few weeks, details of which to come soon. But in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to do a regular blog of evidence-based tidbits about the elections, looking at the latest data and reflecting on possible outcomes generally, and for science.

Polls are like snow-flakes
The papers have excitedly reported that a Yougov poll this weekend shows the Conservatives sitting just 2 points ahead of Labour, a result which if repeated would leave Labour still the largest party, though without a majority.