That BMJ Public Health article on excess mortality by Saskia Mostert et al. has finally been retracted
It took more than two years for the questionable excess mortality study to be retracted from BMJ Public Health.
Pepijn van Erp
On science, bad science, pseudoscience and other stuff
Latest posts
Highly questionable: a request for euthanasia via facilitated communication
One judge ruled that this form of facilitated communication was too unreliable to take seriously an allegation of sexual abuse made in this way. Another judge and several medical doctors decided that a death wish expressed via the same method should be granted.
Unauthorised biography ‘The Ice Prophet’ melts away what little credibility Wim Hof had left
In their unauthorised biography of Wim Hof, Volkskrant journalists Robert van de Griend and Anneke Stoffelen paint a damning picture of the cheerful guru. It's even worse than you thought.
Davis Joseph, son of Florian Kongoli, sues McGill University for 500 million dollars
Davis Joseph is demanding no less than 501 million Canadian dollars in damages from McGill University, accusing the university of stealing his intellectual property.
FIDE’s Regulation on Transgender Chess Players is a Complete Mess
In August 2023, the world chess federation FIDE seemed to have suddenly imposed a temporary ban on trans women's participation in women's tournaments. The uproar seemed overblown to me and based on careless reading of the regulation, but after a minor change in that regulation, I'm not sure what the intention was either. An attempt to sort some things out.
It’s just a (board) game
Artificial intelligence is almost nowhere more tangible than in the world of board games, such as chess and go. What is behind it?
Chatting about conspiracy theories with an AI chatbot
Can a specially trained chatbot help dissuade people from believing in conspiracy theories? This intriguing question is explored in research published in Science, titled Durably Reducing Conspiracy Beliefs through Dialogues with AI. In the study, participants were asked to rate their belief in conspiracy theories on a scale of 0 to 100 before engaging in [ ]
George van Houts – The (un)serious Dutch conspiracy theorist
How Van Houts transformed from a comedian with a taste for absurd humour, through socially critical plays, into an all-round conspiracy thinker.
Rudy Reichstadt interviews Hélène Dumas on the denial of the Tutsi genocide
Interview on the genocide of the Tutsi, 30 years ago, and how its denial still lives on.
Plagiarism in that terrible BMJ Public Health article by Mostert et al
Much has already been written in blogs, newspapers and on X about the article "Excess mortality across countries in the Western World since the COVID-19 pandemic: 'Our World in Data' estimates from January 2020 to December 2022" that appeared in BMJ Public Health on 3 June. One aspect has been somewhat underexposed, namely that what is supposed to pass for 'original research' is for quite a bit…