"The strongest argument that meat is not essential food is the fact that the Creator of this Universe did not include meat in the original diet for Adam and Eve. He gave them fruits, nuts and vegetables. Non-vegetarians easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes." — Read the rest

Real airplanes look like toys dangling from strings in this video from Heathrow.

Writing in the Guardian, Ben Goldacre reveals the shocking truth about the drugs that doctors prescribe: thanks to aggressive manipulation from the pharmaceutical companies and passivity from regulators, doctors often don't know that the drugs were ineffective (or harmful) in a majority of their clinical trials. — Read the rest

"Test, Learn, Adapt" is a new white paper documenting the ultimate in evidence-based-policy: government policies that are improved through randomized trials. It's co-authored by Laura Haynes, Owain Service, Ben Goldacre and David Torgerson. Ben Goldacre elaborates:

We also address – and demolish – the spurious objections that people often raise against doing trials of policy (like: "surely it's unfair to withold a new intervention from half the people in your trial?").

England's Football Association embodies the nation's most popular sport. To promote fitness and good health, it provides these splendid awards to schools that offer adequate soccer programs. I'd ask if you could spot the mistake, but I think this may be one of those "honor the error as a hidden intention" dealies—a tragic fact echoed by star player Rio Ferdinand's endorsement deal with a tobacco company. — Read the rest

Tom Watson and Martin Hickman's Dial M for Murdoch is a timely, informative, infuriating insider account of the News International phone-hacking scandal that has occupied the news-cycle, off and on, for several years now (and shows no sign of slowing down). — Read the rest

"Grand Old Party is data visualization project. It is also a set of butt plugs." (Thanks, Ben Goldacre. I think.)

Darryl Cunningham's Science Tales is a fantastic nonfiction comic book about science, skepticism and denial. Divided into short chapters with simple layouts and graphics, Cunningham's book looks into belief in chiropractic and homeopathy; denial of moon landings, climate change and evolution, the anti-vaccination movement, and related subjects. — Read the rest

Nick sez, "I wrote a post on my company's blog (The Positive Internet Company) explaining why SOPA is a big deal not just in the US, but for the Internet as a whole. We have rescued a number of sites from malign censorship (like Dr Ben Goldacre's 'Bad Science' blog), so we know exactly how such laws will be abused. — Read the rest

Though we're delighted to have our own online toystore up this holiday season, there are a thousand things we could recommend from elsewhere. Cutting it down to a couple of hundred, for our fourth annual gift guide, wasn't easy; this year was a fantastic one for books, games, gadgets and much else besides. From stocking stuffers to silly cars, take yer pick.

Boing Boing Gift Guide 2011

Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of pharmacology at Oxford, made headlines this week by claiming that video games gave children dementia. She later partially retracted the statement, but it's the latest in a series of unsubstantiated claims about the effect of the Internet on children, including a claim linking autism to computers. — Read the rest

"Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: a problem of significance," a paper in Nature Neuroscience by Sander Nieuwenhuis and co, points out an important and fatal statistical error common to many peer-reviewed neurology papers (as well as papers in related disciplines). — Read the rest

Fine artist Penelope Kenny "explores the relationship between humans and other animals, especially in connection to transhumanism, evolution, hybrids and biotechnology." Seen here, "The Tree of Modified Life" (2011, screenprint, 100 x 70 cm). Dig those freaky hybrids! Penelope Kenny (Thanks, Ben Goldacre!)

This amazing photo, showing a woman leaping from a burning building in London, is doing the rounds on Twitter. It's hard to verify, as the website of credited photo bureau Wenn is down, for what may be obvious reasons. Some are claiming the signs suggest that the image is actually from the U.S., — Read the rest

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Celebrating today's 50th anniversary of the first person in space, two tracks from the LP "Yuri Gagarin: 12 Modern Odes to History's Greatest Spaceman" by London-based duo Guess What. (Thanks, Ben Goldacre!)

This week's Bad Science column from Ben Goldacre is an entertaining and frustrating look at the way that the government manipulates statistics with help from a tame and innumerate news media:

The Sun said: "Police have charged nearly 150 people after violent anarchists hijacked the anti-cuts demo and brought terror to London's streets."

Ben Goldacre's latest Bad Science column takes on the new English and Welsh rules prohibiting the display of cigarette packages in stores and the requirement that all cigarettes be sold in generic packaging. While various people in the tobacco industry have protested this move on the grounds that it will make it easier to counterfeit cigarettes (a pretty thin objection, IMO), Goldacre points out a way in which this will significantly improve the public's understanding of the risks from tobacco:

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not, sadly, their own facts.

Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre looks at the UK government's claims that its health cuts and changes are "evidence-based" and finds that the "evidence" consists of bad studies and cherry-picked results.

The government initially claimed that UK heart attack death rates were twice as bad as France.

The Guardian's Patrick Kingsley has a great look at the story behind Sukey, a networked tool that helps protestors in London avoid police "kettles" (when police illegally corral protestors, passers-by and residents into a small area and detain them for hours without access to food, toilets, or medicine). — Read the rest

Ben Goldacre's latest "Bad Science" column for the Guardian is "How to read a paper," a great editorial explaining how to critically evaluate scientific claims that are printed in the newspaper:

Our next case takes more elaborate checking, since it involves an experiment and its interpretation.