Bad Science in the Developing World
Friday, April 27th, 2012 | Humanism
As part of the Atheist Society‘s Reason Week, I recently attended a talk by Martin Robbins, author of The Guardian’s Lay Science blog, on Bad Science in the Developing World.
In the talk, Martin described an expedition to Africa that he undertook last year to investigate the quackery that the Western World is bringing to the continent. As you can imagine – it’s a lot. With limited education, how are people supposed to know that homoeopathy is nonsense? Of course, they can’t be expected to, so it’s an easy sell.
The real question though, is probably “what is the solution?” As Martin points out, when the competition is local herbalists and shamans, finding an answer is going to be tough.
As part of the Atheist Society‘s Reason Week, I recently attended a talk by Martin Robbins, author of The Guardian’s Lay Science blog, on Bad Science in the Developing World.
In the talk, Martin described an expedition to Africa that he undertook last year to investigate the quackery that the Western World is bringing to the continent. As you can imagine – it’s a lot. With limited education, how are people supposed to know that homoeopathy is nonsense? Of course, they can’t be expected to, so it’s an easy sell.
The real question though, is probably “what is the solution?” As Martin points out, when the competition is local herbalists and shamans, finding an answer is going to be tough.