First things first. Take this quiz. It should take you about five minutes. I’ll wait.

Now that we have the quiz out of the way I have to make some assumptions about you before beginning. I’ll assume that you scored pretty high on the quiz. You probably have some kind of science enthusiasm; you might even blog or podcast or comment on science websites frequently. You are most likely college educated, a man between the ages of 18 and 24, and have been to this website before.

Here is a rundown of the week in winners, losers and stinky fakery from the past week courtesy of Doubtful News.

There were some very oddball stories out this week. Let's take a look.

Here's a "not dead yet" story.   He's a winner!

Brooms are forbidden in airspace above 150 meters.

Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo-woo in medicine.

The deceptive rebranding of aspects of science-based medicine as ”alternative” by naturopaths continues apace (David Gorski)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-deceptive-rebranding-of-aspects-of-science-based-medicine-as-alternative-by-naturopaths-continues-apace/ Naturopaths deceptively redefine parts of conventional medicine as “alternative” and falsely claim them as their special province. A new study claims to show naturopathic care is superior to routine care, but it didn’t really test naturopathy: it only showed the effects of intensive counseling about lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise. Naturopaths are a poor choice to provide such counseling, since their training is steeped in pseudoscience.

Antibiotics for Low Back Pain (Harriet Hall)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/antibiotics-for-low-back-pain/ A new study showed that antibiotics improved chronic back pain in a select group of patients who had MRI findings of bone edema adjacent to a herniated disc. It was good science, well designed, with a plausible rationale; but it would be premature to accept it before the study can be replicated and confirmed, and it mustn’t be extrapolated to back pain patients outside the limited subset that was tested.

Why do people believe the things that they do? While only science can generate testable hypotheses, advocates of various paranormal claims tend to rely more on anecdotes, appeals to authority and “intuition” and the general public tends to be ambivalent about the distinction between science and the supernatural. Ongoing controversies over intelligent design in schools, climate change and vaccination have demonstrated that the public perception about science is often shallow due to misunderstandings about how science works.

A recent article published in the Journal of Educational Psychology presents the results of a research study directly comparing the processes that influence how people form opinions on scientific and paranormal concepts. Written by Andrew Shtulman of Occidental College in Los Angeles, the article is part of his research program studying conceptual development relating to science education and how people weigh the actual evidence involved before forming opinions on complex subjects.