Fatherhood, Skeptically

With Halloween around the corner, my social media has been inundated with spooky (not that I mind, at all). Everything from kids costume adds, to Halloween memes, to invites to spooky events. It's a great time of year. Strangely, this year I've noticed a lot of posts about the poison candy myth; specifically, how it is completely false. It is totally understandable why parents would be concerned about their kids eating candy handed out by a stranger. But it is also understandable why so many folks get frustrated that this myth continues to get spread about. Because of this, I wanted to dive in on the origins of this myth and whether we should or should not be worried for our kids. As with many skeptical discussions, I think it is important to set forth some operational definitions; i.e. what qualifies as a Halloween poisoning? Well there are some isolated incidents of children's candy being poisoned. For example, in 1974, Ronald O'Bryan gave cyanide laced pixie sti...

Today, were going to talk about a toxin. This may come as a surprise as toxin is one of the more common pseudoscience buzzwords. Truly, there seems to be an abundance of discussion in parenting blog circles about toxins. Ironically, many who espouse these beliefs themselves ingest an incredibly potent neurotoxin: alcohol. Now, to be clear, I too drink; in fact I am an avid brewer and self proclaimed beer connoisseur. But I am also a chemist so I am no stranger to just how dangerous a compound alcohol is. It may seem strange to be discussing an adult beverage on a blog about parenting. But it may surprise you just how deeply this drink affects our lives. Figure 1 : Ethanol Structure Humans have a long cultural history with alcohol. In fact, there is evidence  that we have been making some form of beer since 11,000 BCE (13,000 years ago). This makes some sense, as fermentation is an effective way to preserve the calories in grain. Furthermore, our ability to rapidly metaboli...