VespaGuy
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
- Messages
- 1,034
Hi folks. I'm a long time lurker, and I thought I'd share a story with you for my first post.
I have a 13 year old nephew, Shaun, who lives with his mother. Because he rarely sees his father, I play the role of the 'cool uncle' - taking him to football games, helping with his schoolwork, and hopefully being a positive male role-model.
A while back, he saw my Penn & Teller Bullsh!t DVDs and asked what they were about (at his age I'm sure the profane title peaked his interest). I explained the show to him and he seemed interested. After asking his mother if it was okay for him to watch them (the language is strong, but nothing he doesn't hear daily on the schoolyard), I allowed him to watch a few of the tamer episodes with me. He really enjoyed them. Since then, I notice that he has been applying a touch of critical thinking to some of the things he hears and sees.
He has always struggled in school, and unless he finds a particular subject interesting to him, he tends not to apply himself. So I was very surprised when he called me to help him with his science project. He said that he wanted to do something about 'alternative medicine'.
I told him all about homeopathy - a subject he had heard about when he was younger, when I was dating a woo. Even back then, he was aware that I considered it a bunch of baloney.
Considering the time & resources required to do any type of double-blind study, we decided to simply show that there wasn't any active ingredient left in the homepathic pills. His project was title "Is there any medicine in homepathic medicine?"
His experiment was simple. We started with a container of water and added food coloring (simply for a visual effect). Then we proceeded to dilute the substance to a 30c dilution. At every dilution, my nephew did the calculations to find out what percentage of the original mixture was left in the new dilution. I also explained Avagadro's number to him and showed him how there was a minimal chance that even one molecule of the original mixture was left once you had diluted to 12c.
He really enjoyed the experiment - and considering how much he hates math, he actually had fun calculating the dilutions.
He gave his presentation this past Monday. Many of the other students (8th grade level) had simpler projects such as coloring a white carnation by adding food coloring to it's water. He said that his presentation was by far the most involved. He explained his experiment, avagadro's number, why people belive homeopathy works, double-blind studies, and anecdotal evidence.
Then he said his teacher, who fortunately was not a woo, said that she normally liked to ask questions, but he had left her with nothing to ask. She asked if he had anything else that he wanted to add. He said "yes, I'm so sure that there isn't any ingredients in these pills, that I can eat this whole package without any effect." Before the teacher could say anything, he opened the container of pills and ate them all! (I had previously told him about the "attempted suicide by homeopathy" that I had read about in Skeptical Inquirer, and I guess he thought it would be a nice show-stopper. I had no idea that he was going to do this, though).
Anyhow, his teacher was a bit stunned by his finale, but handed him back his report and said "excellent job".
He got an A+ and was one of the two students from his class chosen to enter the science fair.
Sorry for the long post. Just wanted to share the story.
I have a 13 year old nephew, Shaun, who lives with his mother. Because he rarely sees his father, I play the role of the 'cool uncle' - taking him to football games, helping with his schoolwork, and hopefully being a positive male role-model.
A while back, he saw my Penn & Teller Bullsh!t DVDs and asked what they were about (at his age I'm sure the profane title peaked his interest). I explained the show to him and he seemed interested. After asking his mother if it was okay for him to watch them (the language is strong, but nothing he doesn't hear daily on the schoolyard), I allowed him to watch a few of the tamer episodes with me. He really enjoyed them. Since then, I notice that he has been applying a touch of critical thinking to some of the things he hears and sees.
He has always struggled in school, and unless he finds a particular subject interesting to him, he tends not to apply himself. So I was very surprised when he called me to help him with his science project. He said that he wanted to do something about 'alternative medicine'.
I told him all about homeopathy - a subject he had heard about when he was younger, when I was dating a woo. Even back then, he was aware that I considered it a bunch of baloney.
Considering the time & resources required to do any type of double-blind study, we decided to simply show that there wasn't any active ingredient left in the homepathic pills. His project was title "Is there any medicine in homepathic medicine?"
His experiment was simple. We started with a container of water and added food coloring (simply for a visual effect). Then we proceeded to dilute the substance to a 30c dilution. At every dilution, my nephew did the calculations to find out what percentage of the original mixture was left in the new dilution. I also explained Avagadro's number to him and showed him how there was a minimal chance that even one molecule of the original mixture was left once you had diluted to 12c.
He really enjoyed the experiment - and considering how much he hates math, he actually had fun calculating the dilutions.
He gave his presentation this past Monday. Many of the other students (8th grade level) had simpler projects such as coloring a white carnation by adding food coloring to it's water. He said that his presentation was by far the most involved. He explained his experiment, avagadro's number, why people belive homeopathy works, double-blind studies, and anecdotal evidence.
Then he said his teacher, who fortunately was not a woo, said that she normally liked to ask questions, but he had left her with nothing to ask. She asked if he had anything else that he wanted to add. He said "yes, I'm so sure that there isn't any ingredients in these pills, that I can eat this whole package without any effect." Before the teacher could say anything, he opened the container of pills and ate them all! (I had previously told him about the "attempted suicide by homeopathy" that I had read about in Skeptical Inquirer, and I guess he thought it would be a nice show-stopper. I had no idea that he was going to do this, though).
Anyhow, his teacher was a bit stunned by his finale, but handed him back his report and said "excellent job".
He got an A+ and was one of the two students from his class chosen to enter the science fair.
Sorry for the long post. Just wanted to share the story.
