Skeptologic

“You’re listening to Skeptoid, I’m Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.” Every Tuesday morning I can’t wait to hear those words and the topic that Brian will be covering that week. The Skeptoid podcast follows a simple, effective format. Every week Brian spends around five to ten minutes covering some paranormal or pseudo-scientific pop culture subject from a skeptical point of view. A couple of weeks ago the episode was about how we can make skepticism more commercial and more appealing to the masses. Brian argues that the key to this is to make whatever the presentation is fun, entertaining, and compelling first and foremost. I thought about this and realized that looking back at all of the Skeptoid episodes I had listened to, my favorites were pretty much the ones that had interesting subject I had never heard of before, tugged at my heart strings, or most of all made me laugh. I went to Skeptoid.com and scanned the episode list to pick out my top ten, which quickly became my top 15 and then top 25. The list was getting too long so I decided to cut it off at 15.

I first heard about Skeptoid from an interview Brian did on another podcast. I thought, well that sounds interesting, he’ll probably cover Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, Roswell, The Bermuda Triangle, etc, and run out of subjects pretty quick. Boy was I wrong. Skeptoid is currently on episode #165, Brian has stated he currently has over 200 subjects and growing to cover (if I remember correctly), and neither the Bermuda Triangle or Nessy have been covered yet! There was just way more baloney out there than I could have imagined, and it is much more harmful than I ever thought possible.

A couple of notes, I did not include episode #150 “Screwed!” While that episode was great, it was so different than any of the other episodes that I have to put it in its own unique category. I am also not counting the various listener feedback and student question episodes, since they all contain so many topics each. So anyway here is my list:

#15: Illuminating the Fatima “Miracle of the Sun” (episode #110): I like this episode because I myslef am of Portuguese descent and grew up hearing about this so called “miracle.” Brian has a very interesting take on what may have actually happened.

#14: Mercury, Autism, and Chelation: A Recipe for Risk (episode #55): This episode is one of the many examples of the harm that pseudoscience can do. A child died because he was being treated for heavy metal poisoning with chelation therapy, even though blood tests showed no such condition. Brian argues against the popular belief that mercury in vaccines causes autism. This episode came out in 2007, and since then there has been an avalanche of new claims (by Jenny McCarthy and others) about so called “toxins” in vaccines. The subject is so important that this episode could use a part two just about anti-vaccination activists and their current claims, but that episode would probably have to be an hour long. Luckily, Dr. Steven Novella and his crew over at Science Based Medicine are also doing an amazing job addressing this topic in great detail. Hopefully people will listen, otherwise we will continue to see outbreaks of terrible vaccine preventable diseases and many children may suffer and die as a result.

#13: Raw Food, Raw Deal? (episode #30): This one made me laugh on my commute and people on the train were looking at me funny. The claims of raw foodists are just so far fetched and silly that I could not help it. It’s the only example I can think of where Brian nearly laughed while recording his podcast. It  happened when he addressed the claim that cooked food is toxic (yes you read that right): “I’m not even sure how to answer this one. Obviously, if cooked food was toxic, everyone on earth would have died long ago. Generations ago. Tens of thousands of years ago. Every speck of evidence shows quite conclusively that everyone talking about this is, well, alive. Cooked food is not toxic, or else we’d be dead.” But then I laughed even harder when he delivered this gem when talking about the claim that cooking food renders it non-organic when in fact you would have to cook it at over 750 degrees Fahrenheit to do so: “So if you cook your food in a ceramics kiln, then yes, it is possible to chemically change it into a non-organic compound.” The episode is just hilarious and the claims are so out there, it was so much fun to listen to.

#12: Should You Take Your Vitamins? (episode #103): Something I had believed my whole life was shattered. Vitamin C does not help you prevent or get over a cold. I had no idea that this whole idea came from one book written in the 70’s, and that clinical trials had disproved it.  Brian also mentions “Airborne,” a supplement that claimed to prevent and treat colds and flu. I had also written about  the Airborne quackery myself a few months earlier, arguing that Walgreens should be sued as well for their knock off, Wal-Borne. Good news: Walgreens just got nailed too. Bottom line, you pretty much get all the vitamins and minerals you need from your food if you eat a balanced diet. You don’t need supplements unless you have a specific deficiency. Oh, and you can’t “boost your immune system” either. Brian said he was going to do a whole episode on that too. Looking forward to it.

#11: Despicable Vulture Scumbags (episode #89): In this episode Brian took the time to address a specific email from a listener whose friend had been diagnosed with ALS. Some jerks sold the victim a useless device called a Barr Wet Cell Battery. It made me feel terrible for both the ALS victim and his friend, who wanted to tell his buddy not to waste his time and money on the bogus device. Brian did a wonderful job giving the guy advice on what he should do for his friend. I was quite upset that people would try to make money off of someone’s ailment with bogus snake oil. They really are “despicable vulture scumbags.” I was in tears. Way to go Brian, you nailed it.

#10: Medical Myths in Movies and Culture (episode #78): “Never listen to your mother!” Oh this episode spoke to me! I’ll never forget one summer when I was a kid visiting family in Boston. After eating a huge lunch my cousins and I started cooling off by turning on a hose and getting wet. An older cousin of mine ran out of the house and screamed at me that by getting my feet wet after eating a big meal I could die. Even as a young kid I could remember thinking that there was no way that could be true. Why did she believe that? Her mother probably told her, and her mother before that. My own mother told me that I could get very sick by swimming right after a big meal (also not true). And I also got the “don’t crack your knuckles, you’ll get arthritis” and “don’t eat chocolate it causes acne” growing up, both of which Brian addresses in this episode. There are just so many of these that this should be a recurring episode. I’ll get you started on the next one Brian: eating pop rocks and soda will not cause your stomach to explode. Go!

#9: Coral Castle (episode #149): When this episode popped up on itunes, I said Coral Castle? What the heck is that? It was brilliant! Especially the video of Wally Wallington moving gigantic blocks around with only tools and methods known to the ancient Britons. He raises a 19,200 lb. block using levers, fulcrums, and gravity. I also like this one because it is a great example of a very common logical fallacy, the appeal to ignorance. Just because you can’t think of how ancient people could have built things like Stonehenge or the Giza Pyramids does not mean that it was not possible or that aliens or some supernatural force must have done it. It just means you have not considered enough possibilities.

#8: Organic Food Myths (episode #19): This was the very first Skeptoid episode I ever listened to, and it is still one of my favorites. Wow, talk about a sacred cow for so many people. Just read the comments on the online transcript for this episode. Brian has addressed them multiple times during the various listener feedback episodes and it looks like there will be a part two to this episode coming next week. People keep accusing Brian of being a paid mouthpiece for “big food.” Apparently there is big everything (big food, big corn, big pharma, big government, big dairy, who knew?) It’s amazing the amount of anger you can generate in people just by pointing out that organic farming does not necessarily mean that the food is grown without pesticides. Or that in most cases it is worse for the environment because you use more land to grow less food. Or that most organic crops are grown by the same companies that grow regular crops. Or that Trader Joe’s is not a small company. Or my favorite: that just because something (like organic pesticide) is “all natural” that it can’t harm you. That is a huge pet peeve of mine. Looking forward to next week’s episode, go get ‘em Brian!

#7: The Magic of Biodynamics (episode #26): Now this one is just plain weird! Adults in the 21st century actually believe that casting a magic spell over a vineyard will improve wine making. It’s just silly on so many levels, and it was another subject I had never heard of before. Just listening to Brian reading the “preparations” directly from a biodynamics website was hysterical. At the end of it, he says “It doesn’t say so but I think you’re supposed to chant Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble while preparing it.” But I really cracked up when he was reading about why cow horns figure so prominently in the potion, complete with bongo drums, monkey and other animal sounds playing in the background. Priceless.

#6: Bend Over and Own Your Own Business (episode #95): Listen to this episode and just try not to laugh while he is naming off the various “business opportunities” companies are trying to sell. It reminds me of those stupid infomercials about “internet millions” that are on late at night. Um, okay, I only watch them because of the large breasted scantily clad women. It also reminded me of  Don Lapre, the infomercial jackass who used to try to sell you “his package” to make money by placing tiny ads in newspapers.  Apparently a lot of people fall for these type of scams. Brian’s description of how these so called opportunities take a normal sales job and invert it so you pay them to work for them was a lot of fun. He also mentions multi-level marketing, which is the king of the business scam. I am very much looking forward to a full episode about that. I really think it’s annoying when people ask if I am interested in a “business opportunity,” especially if it is to sell bogus “health” products like magic fruit juice.

#5: All of the episodes that specifically teach about critical thinking: Listen to these episodes if you want to become a better critical thinker: A Magical Journey through the Land of Logical Fallacies Part 1 and Part 2, How to Spot Pseudoscience, A Primer on Scientific Testing, How to be a Skeptic and Still Have Friends, and The Importance of Teaching Critical Thinking, in which Brian points out:

First of all, happiness and enlightenment are all around us in our world; they are not found only within a given pseudoscience. But moreover, once we begin investing our faith in unsubstantiated or supernatural phenomena, we are contributing to the redirection of attention, influence, and funding away from technologies and concepts that have been evidenced to be beneficial to humanity and to our world. As my good friend says: “If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny; consume you, it will.” The choice between pseudoscience and science is the choice between stagnation and progress: Progress toward long life, health, happiness, a cleaner planet, bountiful food, knowledge, and peace.

#4: The Detoxification Myth (episode #83): The idea that we need to “detoxify” our bodies has become ubiquitous in our society. Even at my work, I have known people who are very highly educated at top universities who go on “detox fasting diets” where they don’t eat and drink only water with lemon juice in it for a week. Some go and get “cleansing” colonic procedures. This episode is the second all time most discussed on the website, and it’s easy to see why. There are so many of these crazy detox ideas and so many people buy into them. One of the more stupid ones are the kinoki foot pads that are supposed to draw toxins out through your feet. The idea that your intestines get clogged with old fecal matter  is very popular. Just check out this crazy infomercial. These creepy guys are basically saying the we are all full of crap. I think they are. The government must not have all of the resources it needs to go after these charlatans, or they are letting them get by with disclaimers. The best defense you have against this kind of stuff is good information. If you have any friends or family members who are considering one of these detox scams, have them listen to this episode. Hopefully it can keep them from making a big mistake with their money and their health.

#3: New Age Energy (episode #1): The first episode is one of the very best. The word energy has been used and abused by so many new age, pseudo-scientific, and quack ideas that this episode kills a whole flock of birds with one stone. It’s simply an explanation of what energy is, and more importantly, what it is not. Energy is not a thing, it’s a measurement. If people can just get that concept they will be  better equipped not to fall for false health scams like straight chiropractic or acupuncture. Can somebody please explain it to Doctor Oz?

#2: Wheatgrass Juice (episode #6): Here is Brian’s reaction to a poster describing the benefits of wheatgrass juice: “My friends, the English language does not contain adequate hyperbole to do justice to the tons of manure printed on this poster.” Boy was he right. When I heard that they were claiming that the chlorophyll in it was “high in oxygen” I immediately thought wait…how can we get oxygen by ingesting it? That makes no sense. Then Brian said “it’s not true at all that chlorophyll is a good source of oxygen. I suggest you continue to rely on your lungs for that, which are probably better, since you don’t have leaves.” Brilliant, but it got better. They also claimed that the high magnesium content in it was good for your sex hormones. In fact, wheatgrass juice has hardly any magnesium at all. Brian then points out: “If you want magnesium, take a vitamin pill. If you want oxygen, take a breath. If you want sex hormones, get a girlfriend.” Just awesome. I am still waiting on an episode about bee pollen and extract of ginseng!

#1: When People Talk Backwards (episode #105): Alright, after 104 episodes I thought I had already heard all of the crazy I could take. But as Brian states in the beginning of this podcast “Just when you thought there was nobody in the world crazier than yourself, along come people who believe that we all subconsciously say what we really mean in reverse.” What? At first he goes into the description of what this means, and them goes on to describe the science behind the perception of what they think they are hearing: audio pareidolia. It was already interesting enough, but them came the audio samples. The first time I heard the sine wave sounds, it sounded like nothing to me. After I heard what it was supposed to sound like, I could not get my brain not to hear the speech! It was amazing. But my favorite moment had to be when he played the famous clip of Jim Morrison saying “Treasures there” backwards, which is supposed to sound like he says “I am Satan.” But then he plays the whole clip and it sounds more like he says “I am Sata-Schnigel.” Then, in his best sarcastic tone, Brian says “So if reverse speech is real, Jim Morrison’s true intention in life was to inform us that he’s Sata-Schnigel.” I was listening with my headphones at work at started cracking up so loud that people came around into my office to see what was going on. But the episode only gets better towards the end when Brian gives his own interpretation of an Indian music video. It was hilarious just to hear him say “I could be high today” and “I see the nuns are gay.” From beginning to end, this episode was just barrel of laughs.

So Brian is definitely right when he says we need to make skepticism commercial by making it entertaining. But the great thing is, he has already done that with the Skeptoid podcast. Hopefully, a television network will think the same thing about The Skeptologists. After all, if Oprah can make misinformation entertaining, why can’t we do the same with good information?

I love this great video explaining what it really means to be open minded and why skeptics who think scientificaly are more open minded that people who believe in the supernatural.