Category Archives: Nature of Science

10 steps for evaluating scientific papers

In the past few weeks, you have probably seen or heard claims that a new study has found that GMOs contain dangerous levels of formaldehyde; however, the reality is that the study itself is questionable at best, and the claims … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Assumptions vs. inductive logic: is radiometric dating based on assumptions?

Anyone who has tried to debate a creationist has invariably encountered their liberal use of the word, “assumption.” This is one of their trump-card, catch-all arguments that they use to handily “defeat” any evidence that opposes their position. For example, … Continue reading

Posted in Nature of Science, Science of Evolution | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments

5 simple chemistry facts that everyone should understand before talking about science

One of the most ludicrous things about the anti-science movement is the enormous number of arguments that are based on a lack of knowledge about high school level chemistry. These chemistry facts are so elementary and fundamental to science that … Continue reading

Posted in Nature of Science, Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , , | 483 Comments

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

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

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