A year of Occam's Donkey

Well, Occam's Donkey has survived its first year intact.

I have found the experience of blogging and following other blogs enormously enriching. I have been forced to blow the cobwebs of years of neglect from an ageing brain and hopefully detached and untangled some of the plaques and tangles(metaphorically). I have enjoyed being a thorn in the side of some of the South African quackeries.

Has this blog (and thousands of others like it) made a difference? Is pseudoscience and quackery on the retreat? Is there an upward trend in the use of critical thinking and evidence supported practice? In the immortal words of Shrek's Donkey:

"Are we there yet?"

Dr. Ben Goldacre and one of his commenters supplied the answer in Bad Science:

"It’s only when you line these jokers up side by side that you realise what a vast and unwinnable fight we face."

and

"I sometimes think the woos have won and we’re fighting a guerilla campaign in occupied territory."

I'm afraid gullibility still rules and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future, especially in my field of interest, education. Quackery, especially those with neuroscience pretentions, often aided and abetted by the educational authorities and the teacher unions, flourish. Let's see what we can do about it in 2009.

Cartoon (somewhat altered) from Philosophy and Reasoning Network.