(Note: We have been having some website issues over the weekend, which is why there has not been a post in a couple of days. All seems to be working now, but we are monitoring closely.)

Science may have a replication problem.

One of the goals of scientific skepticism is to examine the process of science itself, often through the lens of pseudoscience. I find this remarkably helpful, and something that many mainstream scientists often do not understand.

By closely examining pseudoscience as a phenomenon, we can see clear examples of how science goes wrong, how the process of science is subverted, and all the different ways scientists can make mistakes or bias their results. We can then apply this knowledge to legitimate science, flushing out more subtle manifestations of the same problems.

Said another way – if we explore all the reasons that a scientist can come to the conclusion that homeopathy works (when it clearly doesn’t) we will learn much about all the possible ways to fail when people do science (or think they are doing science).

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NASA recently announced that it has created a Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). The purpose of this new office is to defend the Earth from alien invasion.

OK, no, but the name does sound like that, doesn’t it?

The purpose of the office is to coordinate efforts to defend the Earth from Near Earth Objects (NEOs) – essentially comets and asteroids on a collision course with the Earth. The director is Lindley Johnson, who is currently the NEO program executive, which is an obvious fit with the new office.

NEOs do pose a threat to our civilization. You don’t have to be Bruce Willis to imagine how devastating it could be for a large rock traveling faster than a bullet to hit the Earth. Of course, the answer is that it could fall anywhere along a spectrum from nothing to wiping out our entire species. Obviously NASA is more concerned with the latter.

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Three Quebec spa workers were just sentenced to prison for their role in the death of Chantal Lavigne. During their “spiritual” treatment, Lavigne was wrapped in mud, then is cellophane, covered in multiple layers, and her head put in a cardboard box, on a hot summer day, for nine hours. It will probably not shock you to learn that this treatment resulted in dehydration.

The dehydration was so severe that she had to be rushed to a hospital, where she suffered multiple organ failure and eventually died. The three spa workers were given 2-3 year sentences, which seem fairly light.

This is not the first time that this has happened. In 2011 James Ray, a self-proclaimed guru, was sentenced to two years in prison after the sweat lodge death of three people. That’s less than one year per person.

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