An article in the Glasgow Evening times reports that spokespeople for the Scottish Government and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have stated that Gartnavel Homeopathic hosptial will retain NHS funding. Despite the recent House of Commons Select committees damning report on homeopathy and the vast weight of scientific evidence that shows it is no better than a placebo.

This is not good enough – NHS patients deserve to recieve real treatment. We encourage you to write to your MSP and protest this decision.

This week’s cartoon from Dario Battisti

Many of us in the skeptical and science communities will think well of Brian Deer – for his great work as an investigative journalist exposing Wakefield and the MMR scandal. However do recent comments made on Australian radio show that perhaps he holds some similar prejudices and misunderstandings of how science works and is published that seem depressingly common among journalists?

Today sees the publication of the select committee’s report on homeopathy.
Here we collate some of the best reporting on this from the blogosphere (if we have missed your take on the report please let us know in the comments) and we respond to Princes Charles “Foundation for Integrative health” press release.
Specifically to the idea that lying to your patients is more dignified than seeking evidence based treatments for them.

If anything can go wrong it will go wrong. Barring server crashes and this post mysteriously deleting itself whilst being published we present to you a sideways glance at Murphys law. Which if you hold scientists to be overly serious and humourless bores may go some way to convince you otherwise (hopefully anyway).

Our first podcast: an extended interview with Martin Robbins of the layscientist.

This week’s cartoon from Dario Battisti.

Edinburgh International Science festival’s program of events was released today and we’ve had a close look through it to bring you some of the highlights coming up in April.
If you possess anywhere near the levels of science geekery that we do, you’ll be salivating at the prospect of the amount of juicy science on offer!

People like to spend their money on all sorts of things, however if someone is selling something under false pretences you would perhaps expect more of an outcry and perhaps even legislation or censure to stop them taking advantage of people.
So why is it only skeptics who are speaking out for consumer rights and complaining about peddlers of modern day snake oil?

What’s the best way to tackle purveyors of snake oil and denialist myths? Should we confront the anti-vaxxers and the AIDS denialists with evidence? Does this actually do any good? How do we ensure people make decisions based on science rather than pseudoscience or dogma – is it by simply confronting them with contradictory evidence and new ideas?
Food for thought: Research suggests thats confronting and contradicting peoples beliefs with evidence can have counterproductive effects.