Topic: Episode #361

[cole]

I really appreciated the bit on BMJ and neck manipulation.

My wife received a pretty serious neck/back injury while we were in the military -- her spine is now twisting and she is, for all intents and purposes, a disabled vet.  She's not all crippled up, but she'll never do the same tasks she could do before.  While we were still on active duty they referred her to a chiropractor.

I was quite surprised -- the military insurance was going to pay for her to indulge in the pseudoscience of chiropractic medicine?!  My wife is not as skeptical as I am, and didn't know anything about chiropractic "medicine."  My father has been wasting his money for years and guess what -- his back is as bad as ever.  I think all that popping of vertebrae just loosens them up so your discs keep slipping and ya go back for more!  lol.

Fortunately for my wife, there was no gobbledy-gook about midichlorians and energy fields and all that.  They "just" manipulated her neck and back and of course, nothing helped for long. 

Moral of the story: stay out of the way of helicopters lol.

[seaotter]

Wtn is Wendy Wright

[uolj]

Wtn is Wendy Wright

Funny... Wendy sounds an awful lot like a baby rhinoceros.

[seaotter]

It is hard to get any sense out of either.

[stewjack]

I have just finished listening to Episode #361 and I have one question. How, or where, can I listen to those "Irish" episodes of Antiques Roadshow? 

[Ina]

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I wanted to comment on Steve's criticism of pharmacists in Germany being allowed to prescribe drugs. As a German who has lived the last almost 14 years in the US, I think I can give some insight:

In Germany which drugs need a doctor's prescription and which are over the counter are pretty much the same as in the US. The big difference is that in Germany, over-the-counter drugs (including things like ibuprofen, cough sirups, etc.) can only be sold in pharmacies, whereas in the US I can buy them everywhere. So I actually think that the German system has more consumer protection, not less.

[Citizen Skeptic]

But less convenience and less competition.

[PsyStat]

The discussion of congruence bias reminded me of Robert Abbott's Eleusis, a card game we played in an undergrad research methods course:

  http://www.logicmazes.com/games/eleusis/index.html

Actually, I realize now we were probably playing John Golden's variant, New Eleusis/Eleusis Express:

  http://www.logicmazes.com/games/eleusis/express.html

Players use inductive reasoning to identify an unknown "rule," so it's a good way for kids -- or even adults -- to get a feel for the scientific method in general and falsificationism in particular.  Apparently Martin Gardner was a fan of Eleusis.

Woo-fighter tactic: Carry around a deck (or more) of cards, and when you encounter a group of woo-mongering acquaintances exhibiting congruence bias, engage them in a friendly game of Eleusis to hone their falsification skills.