March 2017

Welcome to our regular update on our projects and progress, designed to give our supporters an insight into some of the things we're working on and how you might be able to help. Please share it with anyone you think might be interested in hearing more about Good Thinking's work. 
 

Good Thinking criticises universities for lending credibility to quackery

This month we drew attention to the Society of Homeopaths' AGM, which will take place later this month at Lady Margaret Hall, a college of Oxford University, after the institution agreed to hire venue space to host the event.

After writing to the college and a number of its fellows, we were told that the event will go ahead, even after Regent's University in London drew heavy criticism for allowing a homeopathy group to screen Andrew Wakefield's anti-vaccine propaganda filmed Vaxxed. In the wake of the criticism, Regent's cancelled another dubious-looking event, promoted by the Faculty of Homeopathy and featuring an Indian homeopath who has claimed to be able to treat autism.

Universities are not alone in hiring out their event space to quackery, with the Society of Homeopaths' AGM last year taking place at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester. 

Our work to highlight the issues with learning institutions lending their name to pseudoscience garnered coverage in the Times, the Times Higher Education and the Independent. In addition, we published an opinion piece in the Times Higher Education to explain why it is inappropriate for learning and institutions to open their doors to events that run contrary to the values of intellectual rigour, and calling for all such institutions to review their booking policies to ensure their reputations are lent to potentially dangerous quackery.

Read our opinion piece now >>