The European Skeptics Podcast

This week we are coming back with our regular segments featuring topics like the 17th European Skeptics Congress, CICAPfest2017, James Randi's appearances in Europe, the BMJ being infiltrated by quackery, the harm in using homeopathy (for encephalitis), the latest in the fight against the anti-vaccination movement in Germany and Italy, Spanish skeptics launching a course on how to tackle pseudoscience in the information age, Portuguese skeptics launching a book on how not to be fooled, parents killing their son with gluten-free diet and Denmark repealing their blasphemy law.Also, you can check out our Europe-wide events calendar at http://theesp.eu/events_in_europe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's episode is dedicated to our latest interview with Susan Gerbic, the Wikipediatrician, who's the leader of the international project called Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia. We talked about what's new, how people can join and help the movement and what public engagements Susan has in the coming months. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's episode brings you a lot of news and interesting topics from the world of skepticism across Europe.Firstly, please, consider helping Hayley Stevens raise money to help others attend QED 2017. Then listen to what we have to say about the Charity Commissions consultations, Evidence Matters EU, Pontus being acquainted to someone with the potential to become pope one day, a fishy vaccine study that circulates widely, Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales fighting fake news in his own way, All Trials getting more momentum with major sponsors of clinical trials joining their cause, a follow-up on the Kevin case, the Turkish government's blocking of Wikipedia over claims of terrorist links, Natalie Grams and Homeopathy Information Network to receive Wikipedia pages, Academia being under attack by Hungarian government and a silly study on female homosexuality. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 74 we interview Teddy Winroth, Swedish psychologist and criminologist, concerning a legal scandal regarding several murder cases in Sweden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week brings you a segment on Florence Nightingale, events across Europe and skeptical news including the latest success story of the Good Thinking Society with getting eBay to remove a dangerous product (Black Salve) from their listings, climate targets not being taken seriously, annual prizes awarded by ARP-SAPC in Spain, Spanish skeptical events mounting to 600 since 2010, the UK foreign secretary making false claims, German podcast award for Schlaulicht and a new skeptical podcast on the market in Germany called Nachgefragt. Also, Metro in Sweden comes out with a demonstrative issue intentionally full of fake news, Hungarian family and their naturopath sentenced to prison for killing an infant out of carelessness, Stephen Fry and his blasphemy case in Ireland and Fiona O’Leary fighting against antivaccination nonsense in the form of a demonstration at the screening of Vaxxed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 72 we interview Alan Henness, co-director of The Nightingale Collaboration, a UK-based group focusing on questionable claims in healthcare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week brings you March for Science, a correction from Bethania Palma regarding last week's interview, Catherine of Siena, more bad measles news in Europe, BBC and homeopathy and new fact checking tools on Google. On top of that you will also be shocked to find that The Daily Fail is spreading that deliberate tape worm infections can treat autism… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s episode is entirely dedicated to our interview with Snopes.com fact checker and journalist, Bethania Palma. We also talked about March for Science across Europe. Please, check out our calendar for more information on those and other events. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we are bringing you an episode packed with news, important events and topics from all over Europe:- Autism Acceptance Month- World Homeopathy Awareness Week- Poppy seeds causing false positive drug tests- Public opinion and vaccination- The latest on the screenings of the movie Vaxxed in Germany and Ireland- ComCept’s Flying Unicorn Awards- Nominations open for the John Maddox Prize- QED - Question. Explore. Discover. announced- Nominations open for the British Podcast Awards- Call for speakers at the 17th European Skeptics Congress in Poland- Our calendar of skeptic events- An update on the NHS vs homeopathy- Prince Anne backing GM crops- BBC to uphold the Good Thinking Society’s complaint against the Look North report on chiropractic for animals- An update on the UK Charity Commission’s latest actions- A researcher banned from seeking funding after misconduct in Germany- The German government passes legislation about punishing social media firms for not removing hate speech- New fronts in the war

The episode was almost entirely dedicated to our interview with the Director of Sense about Science EU, Sofie Vanthournout. We talked about their upcoming project, Evidence Matters EU, the expansion of the Ask For Evidence campaign to European countries, how to elevate public debate about scientific issues to influence legislation, building a European network and a lot more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we talked about how fake news are a bit more complicated than that, Vaxxed still growing its audience, Rudolf Steiner and his anthroposophy and schools, Massimo Polidoro having a new book out, ComCept's Flying Unicorn Award, the Carl Sagan Journalism Prize offered by GWUP, the UK's Charity Commission's consultations about the charitable status of organisations promoting pseudoscience, the death of the last patient of Paolo Macchiarini's.Finally, the British Chiropractic Association wins the Really Wrong price for still "happily promoting bogus treatments". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we interviewed award-winning blogger and paranormal investigator Hayley Stevens. We talked about becoming a skeptic after believing, how applying the right way of thinking and the best methods can help us understand how people think, what she thinks of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia and what the nicest approach to debating people might be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we're back with the regular segments discussing lots of different topics ranging from Chickenpox, SpaceX, Newton and Fake News to what happened #LastNightInSweden after all, how Bild is fighting falsehoods, March for Science across the world, Global Warming denial, Paleo diet, Metro in Sweden, What Doctor's Don't Tell You and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we interviewed Florent Martin, who's one of the founders of the French organisation Observatoire Zététique that investigates unusual claims in Grenoble and all over France. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode we talk about the antivax movement and what we can do about it, then move on to talking about Derren Brown's work, whether fortune tellers will be out of Hungarian mainstream TV any time soon, what the problem is with the simplification of science, how Natural News got removed from Google's indexes, what happened #LastNightInSweden, how some of the reportings of rape attacks in Germany turned out to be fake and a Hungarian quack that finally got convicted.Our logical fallacy of the week is 'Appeal to the stone' and the Really Wrong price goes to Polish Minister of Health Konstanty Radziwill for claiming that fighting smog is not a priority health issue in Poland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is entirely dedicated to one topic, which is the latest wrongdoings of the antivaccination campaign, namely the screenings of the pseudo-documentary "Vaxxed - From Cover-up to Catastrophy".Our guests, with whom we discussed this issue were Michael Marshall, project director at the Good Thinking Society and activist Fiona O'Leary, founder of Autistic Rights Together. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we are talking about Andrew Wakefield and his campaign promoting Vaxxed, a pseudo-documentary, Galileo Galilei and his achievements, Hungarian fitness guru talking rubbish again about nutrition, the a Swedish politician loosing his mind over carbon-dioxide, the 'pH Miracle' quack finally charged, the Russian Academy of Sciences denouncing Homeopathy, Wikipedia banning The Daily Mail from being used as source and how different countries fight against fake news.The posthumous Really Right 'award' goes to Professor Hans Rosling for teaching a world about itself through the presentation of data. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode we talk about the rise of the antivaccination movement in Europe and interview Polish psychologist, science writer and science educator, Tomasz Witkowski, who's the author of two very important skeptical books on psychology: 'Psychology Gone Wrong: The Dark Sides of Science and Therapy' and 'Psychology Led Astray: Cargo Cult in Science and Therapy'. He is also one of the founders of the Polish Skeptic Club and a member of the organising committee of the 17th European Skeptics Congress that will be held in Wroclaw, Poland in September 2017. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we are talking about whether Nutella contains a known carcinogen, how the number of autism cases is not on the rise, vaccination against chicken pox called to be made mandatory in Hungary, An interview with Prof. Edzard Ernst on the website of CSI, EvoKids making their brilliant video on evolution available in German, English and Turkish and the Good Thinking Society's next take on acupuncture.This week's Logical Fallacy was the Red Hering and Pontus is really optimistic about recent developments in tackling fake news. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we interviewed Michael Motskin, who's the co-founder and Managing Director of the international science festival, Pint of Science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.