I want the Dunning-Kruger effect to be real. First described in a seminal 1999 paper by David Dunning and Justin Kruger, this effect has been the darling of journalists who want to explain why dumb...
According to manufacturers, 8 million or so humidifiers are sold in the United States every year. In Canada, it has been reported that nearly half of all households use a humidifier, perhaps owing...
There’s an intriguing phenomenon called the IKEA effect and the scientific paper that named it begins with a related story. When instant cake mixes appeared on the market in the 1950s, housewives...
Pfizer and BioNTech’s RNA vaccine against COVID-19 has just been authorized by Health Canada. There will be many Internet whispers, half-truths and lies about how it works and how safe it is, so...
As we sift through more information than ever before, I would argue it’s becoming easier to commit an error in thinking known as the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Imagine the stereotype of a Texan...
People have been asking about a video by anti-vaxxer Del Bigtree who claims that the COVID-19 vaccines have not been properly tested, made animals deathly ill in trials, and are ineffective and...
Public health measures during a pandemic (like lockdowns and mask mandates) can make some people uneasy. One argument that seems to underlie this anxiety is “masks now, government surveillance via...
There is a man on the Internet known for satirizing wellness trends who was recently censored on YouTube for spreading unfounded conspiracy theories. JP Sears made a name for himself by gently...
RSS