Topic: Episode #344

[Chew]

Oh no -- the link in the show notes is wrong.  It links to the same article as item #1.

Contact the webmaster and let him know: Contact - The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

[DrivinWest]

For Rebecca:

The bier in Cologne is called Kölsch and is served in small, ~0.2L glasses. You typically won't have to order - the beer will be put in front of you. Put a coaster on top if you don't want another, otherwise you're likely to get a fresh one as soon as you're done with your first!

Beer in Berlin is trickier. Honestly, beer in Berlin isn't great compared to other parts of the country. Try a Berliner Weiße but don't forget the syrup - it's super sour by itself.

[GodSlayer]

that was a pretty good quickie this week.
heliosphere, good shit.

I don't even like astronomy

[GodSlayer]

^  Much like Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

"If evolution can't be falsified should it be discounted, or at least somehow relegated as a scientific theory?"

Evolution is already relegated as a scientific theory.  It's not a guess.

I think they meant 'relegated from', (to a lower status like 'non-scientific theory').

[GodSlayer]

can I put in a formal request that Rebecca please look into the other 'helmet' issue raised in the episode?

I was a little disappointed to here it raised, only to have the worst argument presented*, and then for the topic not to be returned to.
Sadly, I forget where, but the first time I heard of risk compensation regarding urban cyclist safety was the claim that something (study? survey? guesswork?) showed that motorists are more cautious around cyclists without helmets, perhaps because the motorist believes (rightly or wrongly) a cyclist without a helmet is much more vulnerable in a car vs bike encounter.

*I know for my own case there's no risk compensation by me -- I'd need knee pads, a leather jacket, and a full face helmet before I started taking risks with my safety--the only part of my body yet to make contact in a cycling accident is the part of the head the cycle helmet sits on.

I'm curious whether or not significant physical benefits exist for adults, and to what extent (e.g., good to wear if down-hilling and flying off your bike into a tree, or good if you slip on the road and hit the sidewalk, or good if a car runs into you, etc.).

it would also be interesting to hear the rogues comment on helmets for motorists (allegedly (i.e., according to websites ideologically opposed to helmet laws), helmets can do more good for motorists in car accidents than cyclists in cycling accidents, and perhaps wearing a helmet while in a car is an even better idea for road safety than only wearing one while cycling is, or at least to make your children wear one.

[GodSlayer]

For Rebecca:

The bier in Cologne is called Kölsch and is served in small, ~0.2L glasses. You typically won't have to order - the beer will be put in front of you. Put a coaster on top if you don't want another, otherwise you're likely to get a fresh one as soon as you're done with your first!

Beer in Berlin is trickier. Honestly, beer in Berlin isn't great compared to other parts of the country. Try a Berliner Weiße but don't forget the syrup - it's super sour by itself.

how do you say 'I'm American--I'd drink your piss if it was cold enough' in German?

[rebecca]

can I put in a formal request that Rebecca please look into the other 'helmet' issue raised in the episode?

I was a little disappointed to here it raised, only to have the worst argument presented*, and then for the topic not to be returned to.
Sadly, I forget where, but the first time I heard of risk compensation regarding urban cyclist safety was the claim that something (study? survey? guesswork?) showed that motorists are more cautious around cyclists without helmets, perhaps because the motorist believes (rightly or wrongly) a cyclist without a helmet is much more vulnerable in a car vs bike encounter.

*I know for my own case there's no risk compensation by me -- I'd need knee pads, a leather jacket, and a full face helmet before I started taking risks with my safety--the only part of my body yet to make contact in a cycling accident is the part of the head the cycle helmet sits on.

I'm curious whether or not significant physical benefits exist for adults, and to what extent (e.g., good to wear if down-hilling and flying off your bike into a tree, or good if you slip on the road and hit the sidewalk, or good if a car runs into you, etc.).

it would also be interesting to hear the rogues comment on helmets for motorists (allegedly (i.e., according to websites ideologically opposed to helmet laws), helmets can do more good for motorists in car accidents than cyclists in cycling accidents, and perhaps wearing a helmet while in a car is an even better idea for road safety than only wearing one while cycling is, or at least to make your children wear one.

Yeah, I've actually done quite a bit of research in the past on helmets as used in other sports, particularly cycling because that's my most common use of a helmet. Like it or not, risk compensation is a real effect and it's the one I see cited most often in arguments against helmets for cyclists. The second most common is probably the idea that mandating helmets reduces the number of people who take up cycling, though that only works as an argument against legal requirements and not an argument against helmets in general. Third is what you mention, that drivers experience their own risk compensation when they see a cyclist wearing a helmet. Frankly, I found that study to be cute but ultimately unconvincing. In involved one researcher who was also the cyclist, making it impossible to blind. He claimed to be able to tell that cars were passing centimeters closer to him when he wore a helmet, but we have no way to be sure he was traveling in a perfectly straight line.

Even if his data is correct, all it tells us is that drivers are twice as likely to pass a cyclist closely if she's wearing a helmet. Yes, that increases the likelihood of an accident, but by how much? And what kind of accident can be expected? If wearing a helmet means I get knocked off my bike 1/100,000 passes as opposed to .75/100,000, maybe that's a risk worth taking if my risk of brain injury is reduced by 85%.

Anyway, yes, it's an interesting topic to discuss and I'd be happy to talk about it in more detail on the show some time, if it's topical. I'd have to look into what's been happening research-wise in the past few years.

Also:

how do you say 'I'm American--I'd drink your piss if it was cold enough' in German?

Why on earth do people still think things like this? Either you've never been to America or your time here was wasted. Next time do your research. Call me if you need a tutor!

[GodSlayer]

The second most common is probably the idea that mandating helmets reduces the number of people who take up cycling,

OH THAT'S RIGHT!--that's the other argument I hate.--the health of the general population isn't important when concerned with "road safety" (what the respective laws are based on) and we who are cycling. It's like bringing up the claim that healthcare in the US is unaffordable when the topic is supposed to be the soundness of 'big pharma'/scientific medicine. I'm interested in what works, not how many people can or will make use of what works. practical trade-offs are a separate issue.

how do you say 'I'm American--I'd drink your piss if it was cold enough' in German?

Why on earth do people still think things like this? Either you've never been to America or your time here was wasted. Next time do your research. Call me if you need a tutor!

note to self: when a stereotype joke isn't funny people will think the assertion is an honest belief.

here's a potentially wrong cultural belief, though: Americans have shitty coffee (which is baffling since Americans are the only people I ever hear about having and using special machines for coffee). People are constantly reaffirming the validity of this belief to me.

[GodSlayer]

In involved one researcher who was also the cyclist, making it impossible to blind. He claimed to be able to tell that cars were passing centimeters closer to him when he wore a helmet, but we have no way to be sure he was traveling in a perfectly straight line.

does sound like it could do with replication.

If wearing a helmet means I get knocked off my bike 1/100,000 passes as opposed to .75/100,000, maybe that's a risk worth taking if my risk of brain injury is reduced by 85%.

Anyway, yes, it's an interesting topic to discuss and I'd be happy to talk about it in more detail on the show some time, if it's topical. I'd have to look into what's been happening research-wise in the past few years.

if you feel like doing that some time, you might see if Steve would check out the cited "case-control study of the effectiveness of bicycle safety helmets. New England Journal of Medicine".
because I'd be curious to know just what it means to say that "Helmet use has been estimated to reduce head injury risk by 85 percent" -- "risk" confuses me a little, I must admit. I can understand a bulletproof vest* might reduce actual injury x%, and that a helmet might do the same, but the risk itself? I'm not sure I grasp that concept -- does this mean, theoretically it could have prevented zero head injuries, but nonetheless have reduced the risk a great deal? (I mean, if helmets work as proposed, they've reduced my 'risk' when I've worn them, even though I've never had contact to cause an injury either with or without a helmet on, which means they've not actually reduced any actual injury in my case). Risk aside, just a plain old Mythbusters/crash test dummy test, what is the force difference? I mean, suppose we're thinking in terms of boxing -- you take a punch in the head, can we put a helmet on you, then deliver a blow 85% more forceful and receive only the same force upon the skull? their number has nothing to do with how effective the helmets are, do they? Moreover, an increase force would still move the head/brain a greater amount, irrespective of helmet, right? or does the polystyrene and plastic actually absorb it? what's the nature of the head trauma, and how's it being prevented? (I'm a little incredulous to the idea because I know nothing of engineering, and I don't perceive polystyrene in the same way I view something visibly cushy)

*poor example, I know -- maybe causes bad bruising instead of a bulletwound, so, not an easy concept of 'reduced injury' like 'blow to the head' vs 'milder blow to the head'

they also say "The most serious injuries among a majority of those killed are to the head, highlighting the importance of wearing a bicycle helmet"

...are there any figures on which of the fatalities involved helmet use, and what the circumstances were that made these fatal rather than non-fatal crashes despite the helmet? (such that we can further appreciate the importance of wearing the helmet).

I mean, let's simplify to convey my question: suppose most people didn't die, thanks to the helmet, and the only people who did die had their head run over by the car in the accident. In such a case, it doesn't at all highlight the importance of wearing a helmet, because helmet or not you die. The only thing we don't know is how many who survived would also have survived without a helmet / how many additional deaths there would have been without a helmet. To have a complete picture, to get some honest statistics, wouldn't we need to look at the non-fatal crashes and head injuries? I'm guessing this isn't available/hasn't been done/is ignored because it's impossibly difficult, not because it's not relevant--if there are 100 crashes that result in concussion and a trip to the emergency room and 10,000 crashes that don't result in serious head injuries, there are no statistics for the latter to tell us how relevant the presence or absence of a helmet typically is. ('typically' only being relevant to "risk", not the actual function (which is basic physics?...the directions you strike your head, which part you strike, how your head/neck move with or without a helmet, the force applied to the head), which is more of what I think should be the concern).

EDIT: oh, wow, nearly 30% of those who were killed were drunk?!

[Citizen Skeptic]

I don't think you should be forced to wear a helmet. It will improve the gene pool. 

[GodSlayer]

I don't think you should be forced to wear a helmet. It will improve the gene pool. 

oh, good, my genes are the reason you don't like me. here I thought there was something I could change

[Trinoc]

If the risk compensation argument was a good reason not to wear protective clothing then it would make sense to require that every car steering wheel had a large steel spike sticking out of the centre (and of course ban seat belts and air bags). That way every driver would be ever so careful because they would know the smallest accident would mean almost certain death, and we'd all be a lot safer, right?

[JKVisFX]

As a visual effects and CGI pro,  I believe I can shed a little light on a couple of points.

1)  It looks to me like it was indeed a bear with a large fish (possibly a salmon) in it's mouth.  If you zoom in, the bear shape becomes more apparent and the "trunk" really takes on the movement of something being held it its mouth that is dead, not something alive and attached like a limb.  You can that the "trunk" wobble as the bear moves.

2)  It is most like a composite of footage of a real bear from another source and the river footage as opposed to a cgi bear.  Contrary to Rebecca's comment, doing a convincing bear in CG - even one that low-resolution - is not easy.  It takes a lot of skill and talent and, especially time,  as well as pretty high-end, specialized software to do it (Maya, 3DS Max, Houdini Master to name three).  If you don't need the bear to do specific actions and have footage that is at approximately matching angles of both your subject and your background plates, then that is a lot easier solution.

3)  Regardless of the bear being cgi or life action footage,  you still have to composite the bear into the river plate.  You have to match angles, relative scale, lighting, and color balance.  Not as easy to do it well as it might seem. 

In the case of this shot, there are a couple of giveaways:
a) the water splashes around the feet seem as if they are glued to the feet - in other words, they move with the feet rather than new splashes forming as the feet move.  It's a subtle difference but, to my trained it, I picked it up immediately. 
b) the belly of the bear appeared to be below water level yet, there was no "damming wake" there, only at the feet. 
c)  the bears movement in the water did not "feel" right.  This is a very subjective thing and hard to articulate but, as a vfx artist, it is one of the things you become very attuned to - does it "feel right?"

In this case, it was a good effort and, judging by the reaction by the public-at-large, was convincing enough to do the job. In the world of visual effects, you rarely have the time or resources to make it absolutely perfect; there will always be things you can pick out that don't quite work but as long as the large majority of the audience believes it, (along with things like achieved the storytelling goal of the shot, created a compelling image on the screen, and wowingthe audience), you have done your job well.  This guy's work was pretty good for having used found footage and probably no resources other than just him, his computer and whatever software he had available to him.

FYI -  Here are a couple of the software packages commonly used for this kind of work:
Adobe After Effects http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects.html
The Foundry Nuke  http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/nuke/

[IpraytoJoePesci]

WTN - All the guesses on the forum are pointing towards ice so I'm probably well off base here but as some what of an amateur baker it sounds distinctly like a whisk in a mixing bowl but besides the chemistry of baking I don't see any scientific or sceptical link.

[rebecca]

If the risk compensation argument was a good reason not to wear protective clothing then it would make sense to require that every car steering wheel had a large steel spike sticking out of the centre (and of course ban seat belts and air bags). That way every driver would be ever so careful because they would know the smallest accident would mean almost certain death, and we'd all be a lot safer, right?

I would totally support the Big Spike On The Steering Will initiative.