Category Archives: Nature of Science

“Follow the money”: the finances of global warming, vaccines, and GMOs

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Fallacy Man

One of the most common unifying themes of the anti-science movement is the notion that large corporations and governments are concealing the truth for the sake of monetary gain. These conspiracy theories pervade blogs against GMOs, vaccines, modern medicine, global … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

Basic Statistics Part 3: The Dangers of Large Data Sets: A Tale of P values, Error Rates, and Bonferroni Corrections

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Fallacy Man

In previous posts, I have explained the importance of having lots of data, but what I failed to mention was the dangers of analyzing these large data sets. You see, all real data has variation in it, and when you … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Peer-reviewed literature: What does it take to publish a scientific paper?

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Fallacy Man

Modern science publishes research through a careful peer-review system, and it is the peer-reviewed literature that scientists rely on for their information. Nevertheless, the peer-review system is very poorly understood among the general public, and opponents of science tend to … Continue reading →

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Are creationists and scientists both interpreting the evidence?

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Fallacy Man

I continually hear creationists make the following claim: “Evolutionists and creationists both have the same amount of evidence, they just interpret the evidence differently.” The argument is basically that evolution and creation are on equal grounds scientifically, and the facts … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science, Science of Evolution | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

The Rules of Logic Part 5: Occam’s Razor and the Burden of Proof

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Fallacy Man

Occam’s razor, also known as the principle of maximum parsimony, is one of the fundamental guiding principles in both logic and science. It is commonly explained as, “the simplest solution is usually the correct one.” More accurately, it states that, … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science, Rules of Logic | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments