{"id":1286,"date":"2009-01-17T17:57:17","date_gmt":"2009-01-17T16:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1286"},"modified":"2009-01-17T17:57:17","modified_gmt":"2009-01-17T16:57:17","slug":"weird-science-the-what-and-the-why-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=1286","title":{"rendered":"Weird science &#8211; the what and the why (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve had a terrific day at the Conway Hall in central London attending an event called &#8220;Weird Science&#8221; organised by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cfiuk.org\">Centre for Inquiry<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ethicalsoc.org.uk\/\">Ethical Society<\/a>.<br \/>\nFour very clever and entertaining speakers each had a one-hour slot:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Richard Wiseman, former magician and now professor based at the University of Hertfordshire, discussed the psychology of perception with reference to various paranormal phenomenon &#8211; more information <a href=\"http:\/\/www.richardwiseman.com\">here<\/a>.\n<li>Chris French, professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, looked at such bizarre beliefs as dowsing and backwards Satanic messages  &#8211; more information <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goldsmiths.ac.uk\/psychology\/staff\/french.php\">here<\/a>.\n<li>Stephen Law, senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, explained the meaning of evidence and demolished the arguments of young earth creationism  &#8211; more information <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephenlaw.org\">here<\/a>.\n<li>Ben Goldacre, doctor and journalist, attacked the role of compliant scientists, the popular media, and believing citizens in the misreporting of so-called scientific studies  &#8211; more information <a href=\"http:\/\/www.badscience.net\/?page_id=4\">here<\/a>.<\/ul>\n<p>I have already written features for my web site about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/thinking.html\">&#8220;How to think critically&#8221;<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/truth.html\">&#8220;The reason for truth&#8221;<\/a> and, following today&#8217;s event, I&#8217;m determined to work up a new section on &#8220;Why people believe weird things&#8221; (watch this space!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve had a terrific day at the Conway Hall in central London attending an event called &#8220;Weird Science&#8221; organised by the Centre for Inquiry and the Ethical Society. Four very clever and entertaining speakers each had a one-hour slot: Richard Wiseman, former magician and now professor based at the University of Hertfordshire, discussed the psychology [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}