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The argument is simple, and goes a bit like this. Science does not work by appeal to authority, but rather by the acquisition of experimentally verifiable evidence. Appeals to scientific bodies are appeals to authority, so should be rejected. ...If legitimate authorities are not to be consulted, presumably there is no point in having scientists around at all, as each person would need to verify any claim on their own terms and with their own resources. That would mean a speedy decline into very dark times indeed.

A psychologist compared online reviews of three medical products with results from clinical trials, and found the reviews are skewed towards the positive. The author of the study, Dr Micheál de Barra, wanted to look into whether people who have had good outcomes from treatments are more likely to go online and give positive reviews than people who have had average or poor outcomes. As such, the product reviews provided by online retailers may be distorted. The author looked at Amazon.com - the US version of the site - and analysed two cholesterol-reducing products and one weight loss treatment. In general, he found the extent of cholesterol reduction or weight loss reported by online reviewers was substantially greater than that demonstrated in randomised controlled trials, a more reliable source of evidence on effectiveness.

how could two groups of 'experts' come up with such different conclusions, given they broadly agree of the evidence? David Aaronovitch in the Times identified the critical underlying issue behind the ensuing conflict: whether we take an individual- or a population-based approach. Essentially, the authors point out that any absolute risks are small from an individual perspective, and may generally be cancelled out by the enjoyment of eating, and the bother of changing habits. But these small benefits can be important from a public-health, population-wide perspective, since a lot of people making a small change, that only reduces their risk by a personally-negligible amount, can add up to thousands fewer cases of disease. That's what has generated the disagreement. It can be perfectly reasonable for guidance to be given by authorities, and it can also be perfectly reasonable for individuals to ignore it. Both can be 'right'.

As the author of this FactCheck, I was asked to review the facts on Australia's foreign aid spending from the Menzies era to 2016-17. Sir Robert Menzies was prime minister from 1949 to 1966, which is the Menzies era for present purposes. (Menzies also served as prime minister from 1939 to 1941.) I examined the evidence for and against this statement: Aid was at its highest under Menzies, at 0.5% … when per capita income was much lower. - World Vision Australia Chief Advocate Tim Costello, quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald, December 28, 2016. I found the statement to be incorrect, strictly interpreted, though Costello's broader point is valid. The ratio of Australia's aid to its gross national income has never exceeded 0.48%, and that level was achieved slightly after the conclusion of the Menzies era, in the financial year 1967-68. Below, I explain how I arrived at this conclusion, providing more detail than could be accommodated in the FactCheck itself.

You may have heard the advice for pregnant women to avoid eating soft cheeses. This is because soft cheeses can sometimes carry the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, which can cause a mild infection. In some cases, the infection can be serious, even fatal, for the unborn child. However, the infection is very rare, affecting only around 65 people out of 23.5 million in Australia in 2014. That's 0.0003% of the population. Of these, only around 10% are pregnant women. Of these, only 20% of infections prove fatal to the foetus. We're getting down to some very small numbers here. If we talked about every risk factor in our lives the way health authorities talk about soft cheeses, we'd likely don a helmet and kneepads every morning after we get out of bed. And we'd certainly never drive a car. The upshot of this example is to emphasise that our intuitions about risk are often out of step with the actualities. So journalists need to take great care when reporting risk so as not to exacerbate our intuitive deficits as a species.

Great podcast from our own 2ser & UTS Business School! "latest episode of #ThinkBusinessFutures @2ser, with Dr Geetanjali Saluja @UTSMarketing @UTS_Business, discussing her research into moral decision making, and Adam Ferrier, author of 'The Advertising Effect: How to Change Behaviour'" Discusses some of the framing, cognitive bias, and their impact on decision making that we talked about in class

Nice set of short videos on some fallacies from PBS. Moving the Goal Posts Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios by PBS Idea Channel 2:05 The Fallacy Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios by PBS Idea Channel 2:13 The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios by PBS Idea Channel 2:40 The Strawman Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios by PBS Idea Channel 2:12 The Ad Hominem Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios by PBS Idea Channel 2:23 The Black and White Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios by PBS Idea Channel 2:05 The Authority Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios by PBS Idea Channel 2:02 The "No True Scotsman" Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios by PBS Idea Channel 2:22 3 Fallacies For Election Season! by PBS Idea Channel 11:50

Ocean acidification is an inevitable consequence of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That's a matter of fact. We don't know exactly what will happen to complex marine ecosystems when faced with the additional stress of falling pH, but we do know those changes are happening and that they won't be good news.Freedom of speech, and of the press, is, of course, precious. Yet that freedom also brings responsibility. The Editors' Code of Practice - which IPSO says it upholds - requires the "highest professional standards". This includes taking care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text. In addition, a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and - where appropriate - an apology published.Is this just an honest opinion, a statement of fact or wilfully misleading and clever rhetoric? That depends on what is meant by "evidence". If it means quality research carried out by scientists with expertise in the field, the statement is factually incorrect. But if evidence includes anything said by non-experts, such as Delingpole, then that's an increase, right?

hen the AP United States history students at Aragon High School in San Mateo California, scanned the professionally designed pages of www.minimumwage.com, most concluded that it was a solid, unbiased source of facts and analysis. They noted the menu of research reports, graphics and videos, and the "About" page describing the site as a project of a "nonprofit research organization" called the Employment Policies Institute. But then their teacher, Will Colglazier, demonstrated how a couple more exploratory clicks-critically, beyond the site itself-revealed that the Employment Policies Institute is considered by the Center for Media and Democracy to be a front group created by lobbyists for the restaurant and hotel industries. "I have some bright students, and a lot of them felt chagrined that they weren't able to deduce this," said Colglazier, who videotaped the episode last January. "They got duped."