The following is a contribution to the JREFís ongoing blog series on skepticism and education. If you are an educator and would like to contribute to this series, please contact Bob Blaskiewicz.

In the Fall of 2012 I taught an Honors colloquium on Science & Pseudoscience. This class was discussed in my previous two posts to the JREF teaching series, “Science versus Pseudoscience: Do You Know What You Think You Know?” and “Is It Quackery?: Searching Primary Literature And Popular Evidence For Signs Of Pseudoscience”. In this last post I will take a look back at the most recent semester.

It was a VERY busy week in weird news, no doubt about that. Here is a rundown of the top stories in pseudoscience, anomalies and just plain oddness from the past week courtesy of Doubtful News.

This was a HUGE week in Bigfoot. The Melba Ketchum paper describing her Sasquatch DNA project was released. But there were SERIOUS questions with the publication format rendering the whole project suspect.

Then, she announces that the data is being reviewed by others. Too bad that didn't happen PRIOR to publication like good science protocol should work.  Some people have to claim their share of the limelight. 2008 Georgia Bigfoot in a Freezer hoaxer Rick Dyer claims he shot another one. This time for real.

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.  

An open letter to Penn and Teller about their appearance on The Dr. Oz Show (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/open-letter-to-penn-teller/ Penn and Teller are well known for their skepticism, but they let their fans down when they appeared on the show of the very non-skeptical Dr. Oz. The segment was pointless, debunking only banal myths like the idea that swallowed bubblegum takes 7 years to digest. They offered the appearance of support to Oz, who promotes all kinds of quackery on his show, some of which is potentially harmful to viewers.  

Death as a Foodborne Illness Curable by Veganism (Harriet Hall) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/death-as-a-foodborne-illness-curable-by-veganism/ A doctor who advocates veganism has produced a video claiming that death is a foodborne illness, and that all the major causes of death can be prevented or treated by avoiding foods of animal origin. The studies he cites are cherry-picked and misinterpreted, and he omits any discussion of other studies that got different results. The evidence for a plant-based diet with limited meat is compelling; the evidence for total avoidance of meat, milk and eggs is not.  

As the editing on my 10th book “A Magician in the Laboratory” passes its half-way mark, I’ve come once again to the name George Vithoulkas, a Greek homeopath – but a bit of history before I continue. The JREF includes the efficacy of homeopathy as a legitimate paranormal claim for the Million Dollar Challenge because if it worked as claimed, it certainly would be paranormal – magical. With not a single atom or molecule present in a diluted solution, yet still effecting a cure, that ranks as "paranormal."

This man Vithoulkas had become aware of my 2003 appearance on BBC television in which homeopathy failed a definitive and comprehensive test, and he decided to apply for the JREF prize. A protocol was devised in agreement with a group of international scientists and the experiment was to take place in a hospital in Athens. It involved homeopaths, under Vithoulkas` supervision, prescribing individualized remedies to a number of patients in a double-blind fashion with half of the patients receiving a homeopathic remedy, and the other half no remedy. In August 2006, I sent my signed agreement to Vithoulkas in which I stated my satisfaction with the suggested protocol. I also waived the preliminary test, as I had with the BBC tests, to speed up the process. However, I was then forced to delay the start of the experiment owing to serious health problems.

Vithoulkas has claimed that I knew of certain impending political changes in the Greek government at that time that might have affected his involvement in such a series of tests. It seems that the new administration would not have been agreeable to paying the costs of these tests. I was of course unaware of this situation, yet Vithoulkas now claims that I was looking for a way of getting out of the challenge, certainly one of the most rigorous and well-organized attempts to win the one million dollars that had ever been attempted.