Con Trail

Oh no contrail, chemtrail, cottontail, etc.

or Could it be the moisture being condensed from the air at the wingtips of a plane?

Alternative Medicine and Health Insurance

Now that the United Kingdom National Health has said that Homeopathy is not supported by any evidence to justify the government paying for it, why do private health insurers want to pay for alternative therapies when they don't provide efficacious treatments.  I would think that wasting money on a treatment that is ineffective would be a priority for an insurance company.

They spend a lot of money on investigating fraud from the claimants, logically I think looking at some of the providers that may be supplying ineffective and costly treatments.

We (well those that have private health cover), pay premiums so that when we need medical treatment it is available.  The cost of health cover increases each year to cover the increasing costs of medical treatments.  The government subsidises these premiums by giving us tax breaks.

So are the government agencies happy about subsidising ineffective treatments.  Especially when the budget for Health is under constant pressure for cuts.  These cuts come directly from proven medical treatments, via public hospital funding.

Is it fair?

Is it reasonable?

I think it needs a closer look, initially by the insurance companies, ans maybe from a government point of view.

Power Balance Bands and other things

I have just purchsed a large quantity of  Placebo Bands.  I am going to use them in the course of my Cub Scouting Program to encourage critical thinking.  I have shown the Cubs (aged 8-10), how Applied Kinesiology can be used to fool people in to thinking they have more strength and balance when holding a magic hologram, (or in our case the super magic stuffed wombat).

My next plan is to teach them all to be able to do it themselves, and be able to share the techniques with others.  I hope to get some of the material from the JREF to ask the question "do I have ESP".  I would also like to run a session on the difference between an anecdote and evidence.  I believe the skepticzone or Australian Skeptics run lessons at schools, I would like to use some of this material.

Magic and Scouts

Lord Baden Powell, the founder of Scouting, was a great proponent of disguise, acting, magic tricks, and many other seemingly frivolous activities.

He recognised the value in a combat situation, being able to trick your enemy, or distract them, was a valuable skill.  Using sleight of hand and using a persons own mind against them, could be just what is needed to give you an advantage, and save many lives.  It can also be fun.

What is all of this about?  Scouts has a long tradition of Gang Shows that include acting, dress up, magic tricks and singing.

I would like to spend a bit of time on the magic tricks.

We all know that when we see a magic trick, that we are being intentionally fooled.  We pay to see it because it is entertaining (hopefully).  We suspend our disbelief at the door, accept it as it happens and afterwards wonder how it was done.  Because it was right in front of me, he/she couldn't have done it really, could they?

Magic rely's on simple distraction, special props, and sometimes other people in on the trick or planted in the audience.  But at its most basic, you are being distracted at a critical time, so that the "incredible" can happen.

Learning how to do magic, or at least how it works, will give you a basis in being critical when an incredible event happens, or when someone tries sleight of hand or magic tricks to sell you a product.  An example is the "Power Balance Bands", apparently "holograms are designed to work with your body's natural energy field. Balance - Strength - Flexibility."


This seems quite an extraordinary claim, so you would expect some extraordinary evidence to back it up.  It appears that all they have are some demonstrations that use Applied Kinesiology, and some testimonials.


This is hardly extraordinary evidence for a product that sells for around $60 AU, but can be purchased from the same manufacturer, for about 3 cents each, or from Skeptic Bros (they are the original Placebo Bands) for $2 each.

So if you are aware of the techniques used to promote the products, or you can at least recognise that what is being said about it or how it is supposed to work, is a bit dubious.  You can take a step back, assess and analyse the evidence, and make a truly informed decision.

So if you would like to see some really good magic tricks that anyone can do, read the Scout Magic book (quite an old book), or see some of the videos on Scam School.  I am sure that there are many other wonderful places to learn great tricks that can be passed on to scouts, or better yet, see if they can do some research and find some magic tricks of their own.

What can I do as a Scout Leader?

For the most part, we as leaders in scouting, use a structured, guided way of teaching using mostly activities, as opposed to classroom type learning.

Logic, rationality, critical thinking are very important when it comes to running an activity, that might contain some dangerous elements.

As an example.  We look at an activity from an outsiders viewpoint to determine if it is safe, or what steps we have to take to make it safe.  We also look at it from a fun perspective.  If its not fun, then why would you do it.  Both these points need a cold rational look at the activity, to see if it will work as intended.

Designing an activity and then hoping and praying that it will work, or that no one will get hurt, is a recipe for disaster.  If you have done similar stuff before, then it isn't a big step, to translate it to a new idea.  But there are unintended consequences.  So a simple sit back and have another look at it, and do a proper assessment, will eventually bring better results.

In scouting the scouts themselves also run activities.  So they will also need to be looking at it from this perspective. So a good grounding in critical thinking and being able to assess a situation and plan ahead is very important.  So the sooner that the scouts are able pick up and use these skills the better.

So being objective, and logical when it comes to making a decision should be one of the first things that a scout should learn, and they should then pass it on to other scouts in their patrols, sixes, dens, packs or group.

We are all scientists?

Are we all Scientists?

As far as I can tell, we go about our lives mostly without realising, that we make decisions based on our knowledge and experience. This is basically the same in science.

We see a problem, or something interesting, we make up our mind what it is causing it (the hypothesis), we may seek evidence or more info (testing the hypothesis), and if it is confirmed, then our belief becomes solid. If if the hypothesis is proved incorrect then we need to formulate a new idea, and so on, until the theory is so thoroughly tested that it becomes a fact (in our mind at least).

Most of this goes on on a subconcious level, is is just mundane daily stuff, not to interesting.

When an event that is way out of the ordinary happens, and the availability of evidence, is non existent, or the event happened so fast, that it was hard to pay close attention, to get more information, we tend to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, with what we already know, or have been told.

If you are not being critical in your thinking, and need an answer now, then the story you come up with may lack detail, may not be well considered, or a number of other things may happen. All leading to a result that may sound reasonable, but may not reflect the truth of the situation. Just ask a detective how many different accounts they get from a crowd of people all watching the exact same event.

So when someone exclaims something incredible. Then they must have incredible evidence to back it up. Something solid like, photo's, video, DNA, remains, documents that are related directly to the event, etc. Even then a single piece of evidence may not be enough to be conclusive.

As I mentioned earlier science is a process, not a bunch of facts.

Just ask a scientist how many times they have made a mistake. They will probably tell you outright that they have made many (it may be the mistakes that were the most interesting). The beauty in this is that you learn something from your mistakes (hopefully).

Don't trust anyone who never makes a mistake (politicians are never wrong), all it means is they don't recognise a mistake and so never correct it, or learn from it. If we don't learn from our mistakes we don't progress.

Be happy with change. Science is constantly changing. Some strong theories of the past have been overturned because of better evidence. Although for the majority of theories, new experiments and testing just refine the theory., with its broad "intent"still valid.  Better designed experiments can yield more reliable results.

Just look at Andrew Wakefield, he had a hypothesis, he tested it, and came up with an interesting result. Subsequent experiments on significantly larger populations, and tightly controlled experiments have since shown his results to be incorrect. (He can't bring himself to accept these results, so doesn't learn anything new).

Embrace your mistakes, they are things you can truly call your own, but more importantly, learn from them.