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science:

industrial bleach as cancer and HIV cure »

“The product instructs consumers to mix the 28 percent sodium chlorite solution with an acid such as citrus juice. This mixture produces chlorine dioxide, a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and industrial water treatment. High oral doses of this bleach, such as those recommended in the labeling, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and symptoms of severe dehydration.”

via (Science Based Medicine)

Ummmm? Not a response I expected.Ummmm? Not a response I expected.

Ummmm? Not a response I expected.

via Pharyngulavia Pharyngula

via Pharyngula

Posted May 21, 2010 on TED

Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they’ve created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science.

(via Atheist Media Blog)

On Clarke’s third law:

Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction stated: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

I would go a step further and say that any sufficiently advanced natural process is also indistinguishable from magic. Or at least, I am lead to believe that many people are unable to even imagine the possibility of human consciousness emerging from natural processes without the need for a metaphysical explanation.

Mind/Body Dualism is one big argument from ignorance.

Michael Specter: The danger of science denial (TED.com)

“That’s the obnoxious part of religion, and why it’s in conflict with science. Science is the world of Let’s-Find-Out, while religion is always the land of You-Can’t-Know-That. One tries to build fences around sacred domains, the other has great fun knocking them down. Go ahead, pretend that your god is safe and hidden away where scientists can’t poke at him with needles or measure his emanations with widgets that go beep or photograph his spoor and stick it in a chromatograph — we don’t care. The only way he can escape our probes is if he doesn’t exist…so the more you protest that he is absolutely indetectible, the more we nod and say, “Then you’re admitting that he isn’t even vapor.”

—PZ Myers: Am I to be the next enemy of the NCSE?

via Pharyngula

“It’s a most peculiar psychology - this business of “Science is based on faith too, so there!” Typically this is said by people who claim that faith is a good thing. Then why do they say “Science is based on faith too!” in that angry-triumphal tone, rather than as a compliment? And a rather dangerous compliment to give, one would think, from their perspective. If science is based on ‘faith’, then science is of the same kind as religion - directly comparable. If science is a religion, it is the religion that heals the sick and reveals the secrets of the stars. It would make sense to say, “The priests of science can blatantly, publicly, verifiably walk on the Moon as a faith-based miracle, and your priests’ faith can’t do the same.” Are you sure you wish to go there, oh faithist? Perhaps, on further reflection, you would prefer to retract this whole business of “Science is a religion too!”

—Eliezer Yudkowsky, ‘The Fallacy of Gray’

UK Government committee recommends public funds pulled from homeopathy »

In a stunning move announced this evening Australian time, members of parliament in the UK have recommended that homeopathy be removed from the National Health Service (NHS).

It also concluded that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) should not allow homeopathic product labels to make medical claims without evidence of efficacy. And as they are not medicines, homeopathic products should no longer be licensed by the MHRA.

(via Australian Skeptics)

Oh that poor snake oil salesman! (via Skeptic’s Book of Pooh Pooh)

via Pharyngula

by Symphony of Science

by Symphony of Science