/oss/taxonomy/term/4593/all en /oss/article/covid-19-critical-thinking/doctor-carl-sagan-warned-us-about <p>Predictions made by psychics and astrologers tend to quickly fade from memory because of how wrong they often turn out to be, but one prediction made by Carl Sagan, an astrophysicist and famous science communicator, is so unfortunately on the money that it continues to outlive him.</p> Thu, 07 Jan 2021 19:41:00 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8548 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-videos/july-9-2020-covid-and-more-conversations-mcgill-oss-professor-tim-caulfield <p></p> Thu, 09 Jul 2020 17:36:06 +0000 OSS 8332 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/placebos-used-vaccine-trials-do-not-please-everyone <p>Against what does a vaccine need to be tested in the context of a clinical trial? The answer that pops immediately to mind is “a placebo.” In the medical sciences, things get compared to placebos to see if they have inherent potency or if it’s all about the theatre and natural circumstances surrounding them. And because placebos are frequently thought of as sugar pills and saline injections, it’s understandable that some people look at vaccine trials and are puzzled as to why, in specific cases, the experimental vaccine was not compared to an injection of a saline solution.</p> Fri, 03 Jul 2020 20:24:05 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8329 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-pseudoscience/masks-fall-when-antivaxxers-congregate <p>“I try to look and see where the evidence takes me.” Does this statement sound reasonable? If I told you it came from me, you might not bat an eyelash, but these words were spoken by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a famous antivaxxer, during his keynote address for the AutismOne virtual conference. Pseudoscience is insidious because it steals the very concepts that we promote in science and claims to abide by them, and there was a lot of pseudoscience at AutismOne’s conference this year. Truth be told, that’s seemingly all there is every year.</p> Thu, 11 Jun 2020 18:57:31 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8287 at /oss