Topic: Episode #284

[Steven Novella]

News Items: Arsenic-Based Life, Buttology, V-Steam, Singing Mice, The Real daVinci Code
Who's That Noisy
Special Report: Power Bands with James Randi and the SkepticBros
Science or Fiction

[werecow]

Could it be? First?

[Anders]

Nope. Steve is first every week. How does he do it?

[werecow]

Nope. Steve is first every week. How does he do it?

He's eerily quick, that's for sure.

EDIT: Also, this episode gets my year's best vote, for obvious genitalia reasons.

EDIT 3: Holy crap, Steve, you did a course for TTC? That's awesome! I'm gonna enjoy totally not downloading and watching that illegally at all! }|<o)
I take it it's this one: http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1540

EDIT 4: Nope, guess I was wrong: http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1924

[seaotter]

Saturday Christmas! Thanks for the Christmas present of a podcast!

I had "balls too warm" one time.

I'm ordering a Placebo band to help my balls too warm!



http://skepticbros.com/placebo-bands/

[GodSlayer]

re. minute 2

Rebecca, do you listen to The Ricky Gervais Show podcast?

"The reason we've got loads of chickens and loads of cows is 'cause we eat 'em. If we ate polar bears we wouldn't be short of 'em, because you'd farm it; you'd take more care. But what's a polar bear doing?--sat on a block of ice, floatin' about; it's no use to us, is it?"

I heard that just last week

[bachfiend]

I have listened to all of the 'Medical Myths" lectures.  They are very good, with an occasional error slipping in here and there.  For example, ABO blood groups does accurately predict personality type.  My blood type prediction was spot on (with the exception of being 'sociable').  Also ABO antigens aren't proteins; they're carbohydrates (that was probably a slip).

One thing that did have me worried; in the lecture on the placebo effect, Steve discussed 'confirmation bias' and I thought, he's going to talk about 'regression to the mean' next, and that's what he did.  Has he smuggled in some subliminal psychic control mechanism into the audio.  Obviously, the tin foil hat wasn't working.

[seaotter]

It's Christmas not April fools.

[MountainManPan]

  For example, ABO blood groups does accurately predict personality type.  My blood type prediction was spot on (with the exception of being 'sociable'). 

You speak very good English for a Japanese person.

[GodSlayer]

an occasional error slipping in here and there.  For example, ABO blood groups does accurately predict personality type.  My blood type prediction was spot on

if you write a profile resembling a normal person, and tell enough people you read it from their palm, eventually you'll be right about the profile, and eventually you'll be right with someone who is thoroughly impressed by your mystical powers.

[Silly Llama]

Regarding the Buttology hoax, here's my theory about how it got into the magazine:

S.C.A.M is like Harry Potter fanfiction, there's an unspoken agreement between the participants that you don't criticize anyone else's work because you know yours is just as bad.  What's a homeopath to do when something like Buttology comes up, demand a rigorous, placebo controlled, double-blind trial?  It's more than a little hypocritical to require new S.C.A.M treatments to be any better than the ones that exist already.

[GodSlayer]

Regarding the Buttology hoax, here's my theory about how it got into the magazine:

S.C.A.M is like Harry Potter fanfiction, there's an unspoken agreement between the participants that you don't criticize anyone else's work because you know yours is just as bad.  What's a homeopath to do when something like Buttology comes up, demand a rigorous, placebo controlled, double-blind trial?  It's more than a little hypocritical to require new S.C.A.M treatments to be any better than the ones that exist already.

I don't think there's a wall of shame page in each issue listing all the people who for some reason didn't get published.

presumably they could reject the submission and no one would ever know. (if you sent Nature magazine a paper on ducks written entirely in quacks, they wouldn't be forced to publish it and let the reader evaluate it it for themselves, nor would peer reviewers unknown to the author have to give it the thumbs up. I don't see why alt. med folk would feel obliged to risk their reputation by endorsing everything that crosses their desk).)

[Silly Llama]

Regarding the Buttology hoax, here's my theory about how it got into the magazine:

S.C.A.M is like Harry Potter fanfiction, there's an unspoken agreement between the participants that you don't criticize anyone else's work because you know yours is just as bad.  What's a homeopath to do when something like Buttology comes up, demand a rigorous, placebo controlled, double-blind trial?  It's more than a little hypocritical to require new S.C.A.M treatments to be any better than the ones that exist already.

I don't think there's a wall of shame page in each issue listing all the people who for some reason didn't get published.

presumably they could reject the submission and no one would ever know. (if you sent Nature magazine a paper on ducks written entirely in quacks, they wouldn't be forced to publish it and let the reader evaluate it it for themselves, nor would peer reviewers unknown to the author have to give it the thumbs up. I don't see why alt. med folk would feel obliged to risk their reputation by endorsing everything that crosses their desk).)

That's very true.  I was thinking more along the lines of an internal thought process.  When a person at a magazine for SCAM decides to reject an article what do they tell themselves is the reason?  Doesn't work?  Implausible mechanism?  Requires magic?  Potentially harmful?  One or more of these descriptors applies to most if not all of the treatments they endorse.  How do they turn something like Buttology away when it is no more insane than homeopathy, for example?  I sometimes think that they don't let themselves see the weaknesses in other theories because the critical thinking process required to find them might force them to see the flaws in their own pet theory.

[Trinoc]

WTN is around 41 minutes. I feel I ought to recognise the interviewer's voice, but I can't place it. Is the interviewee Rebecca?

(This duplicates a message in another thread, but I'm posting it again here to get this episode's thread on my search page).

[werecow]

I found the wrong TTC course apparently; Steve's course didn't show up on my mailing list or in the search results yesterday.

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1924