Friday 11 March 2011

The Quackometer - passed!

Just finished reading Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst's excellent book 'Trick or Treatment' and enjoyed it.  Somehow they managed to say that it is irrational to believe in most forms of alternative medicine without making me feel stupid for having fallen for a few homeopathic scams in the past.  I am now fully converted to the anti-homeopathy brigade.

Its funny how you can read a book like that, find a name you know, and realise that you have recently made the acquaintance of someone who is quite famous.  This came in the form of a reference to Andy Lewis's website 'The Quackometer' which claims to be a contribution to the automatic debunking of quack medicine on the net.

So - did it work?  I tested it on this blog and on my other technical web site and was relieved to find that I got a score of zero quacks on the international scale of quackery for both.  Phew!



Just to convince myself it worked I tried the British Chiropractic Association too.  They score 8 quacks.

Going to read Richard Wiseman's new book 'Paramormality' next.  The first few pages have been gripping.

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