Dr Kat

Look! It's my very first publication! Justice is (Not So) Blind: Effects of Facial Masculinity and Agreeableness on Perceptions of Criminal Guilt. Currently available on the APA website as an online first article doi.apa.org/PsycARTICLES/j… And here bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/21…

The IPP prisoner scandal, and the death of Matthew Price | Emma McClure Matthew had been free from prison for almost 10 years, when the hopelessness of his situation led him to take his own life – another victim of the IPP prisoner scandal skeptic.org.uk/2024/04/irrede…

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has died at 100. As the media prepares to sanitize his legacy, history will not forget his true record of bloodshed and war crimes in the service of Empire

YES

@mrgrahamreed @bastardspod Aww, thank you!

Well, this is awkward. Do I win a prize or anything at least @bastardspod ?

@Stick_Pins EXACTLY

@KatLikesJam Most things are portable if you try hard enough 🤣

This sign on the new Merseyrail trains bothers me so much. Surely, if you have managed to get a device to and onto the train it is, by definition, portable.

I'll be recruiting a PhD student in the next cycle - please pass this along to anyone who might interested in joining my lab at Cornell! Open-ended, but interest in topics relating to intuition/reason, metacognition, overconfidence, misinformation, or beliefs is a bonus!

As there's a chance some of my old @QEDcon pals might be back here for the weekend, I should mention there's only a week left until 3 of 3 in my stupid marathon challenge If there's any money left after last night's shenanigans, give it to @GrassrootsSP! Tinyurl.com/mike-runs

This year's Rusty Razor award will be announced on Saturday, as part of the evening entertainment at @QEDcon. It remains to be seen whether this year's winner will go on to have a lasting influence on political decisions a year from now.

Here’s a CV template created by Harvard. I have uploaded the word form to a google drive so you don’t have to create from scratch. You just need to edit and include your details.

Jim Humble, founder of Miracle Mineral Supplement, died this week. Back in 2010, I (along with @Hayleystevens) interviewed Jim, in what I think might be the only interview he ever gave to people who didn't agree with him. You can listen to it here: merseysideskeptics.org.uk/podcasts/be-re…

Which skeptical activist deserves praise? Which pseudoscientist deserves attention? Two weeks left to nominate your best and worst of 2023!

Eeek, only 50 tickets left for @QEDcon. If you are thinking of going, you better think fast!

Down to the last 50 QED in-person tickets still available! Have you got yours?

In a strange event on April 19th, 1995, McArthur Wheeler executed a bank robbery while wearing a disguise consisting of lemon juice smeared on his face. His rationale was rooted in the belief that lemon juice, commonly used as invisible ink, would render him undetectable by CCTV cameras. With confidence, he even grinned at each camera he encountered during the heist. However, later that same night, the police apprehended Wheeler. The moment of reckoning occurred when they presented him with the CCTV footage, leaving Wheeler utterly astonished. He expressed his disbelief to the officers, uttering the baffling words, "but I wore the juice." This outlandish episode involving McArthur Wheeler has earned its place as a renowned case study in the realm of psychology. It notably contributed to the unveiling of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias wherein individuals with limited competence in a particular task tend to overestimate their abilities.

#Placebo Effect Myths: Branded painkillers work better? Actually, the study found only a very small effect and the trial design has a high risk for bias. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6786566/

#Placebo Effect Myths: Placebo surgery is effective for shoulder pain? Many of these surgery studies actually demonstrate that the operation is ineffective. Others are confounded by the patients in the placebo group receiving physiotherapy while in recovery.

#Placebo Effect Myths: Exercise works better when you believe you’re exercising. This claim is based on a study which failed to replicate.

#Placebo Effect Myths: Placebos work even when you know it’s a placebo? Regression to the mean will happen regardless of what you believe about what you have taken. But these studies are also prone to bias because of their reliance on self-reported data.