Last night was the first meeting of the Leicester Skeptics in the pub. A forum where people can go and, well, be skeptical. For the first meeting Simon, the organiser had arranged for Simon Sing, a BBC presenter and producer, and author of a number of books on an array of subjects from cosmology to alternative medicine, to speak. His talk was about the truth behind alternative medicine, based on the meta analysis of numerous studies, by his co-author Edzard Ernst, the first professor of alternative medicine in the UK.
The talk he gave was informative, witty and balanced. He acknowledged the scientific evidence that some therapies had areas in which they could be proven successful, for instance acupuncture seems to have some benefit for some types of pain, and chiropracty has some benefit for back problems, however he also showed that some forms of treatment simply overextend themselves, and yet others are nothing more then placebo effects.
I'm really looking forward to going to the second meeting next month, although the speaker isn't yet confirmed, and I know Hubby is looking forward to July's talk on "Mars Myths".
There are a number of
Skeptics in the pub groups, you can see on their website, also
Simon Singhs site has more about who he is and what he does. His book, Trick or treatment (which I bought and it looks fab) is available on
Amazon.
