Ongoing Skeptic Thread

[troutman]

POM: Not So Wonderful


http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/...ul/#more-21115

“POM Wonderful” is a brand of pomegranate juice. It is manufactured by a company owned by Linda and Stewart Resnick, California billionaires who pretty much single-handedly created a multi-million dollar market for pomegranate juice where none existed before.

In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against Resnicks, one of their business partners, and two of their companies (which I’ll refer to collectively as “POM”), alleging unfair and deceptive trade practices. POM, according to the FTC complaint, made false and misleading claims that its POM products treat, prevent, and reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction.

An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) agreed with the FTC and on May 17, 2012, issued a 335-page decision and cease and desist order, ruling POM lacked competent and reliable scientific evidence that drinking 8 ounces of POM Wonderful Juice daily, or taking one POMx pill, or one teaspoon of POMx liquid, treats, prevents or reduces the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer, or erectile dysfunction. In the Matter of POM Wonderful, LLC, et al., F.T.C. No. 9344 (May 17, 2012).

[troutman]

Announcing Consequence: A New Podcast About the Harm in Unfounded Belief
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/...ed-belief.html

How do unfounded beliefs actually hurt people? That's a question every skeptic has heard, and should be prepared to answer. After all, it's not just enough to be right about the facts; we should use those facts to help people. Tim Farley's popular website What's the Harm? has long documented cases of woo gone awry-- stories of real people hurt by fake psychics, charlatans and other nonsense-peddlers. Today, we're happy to announce our new podcast, Consequence, which explores firsthand how pseudoscience and claims of the paranormal can be harmful to believers. In each episode, regular people share their personal narratives about the ways a belief in fortune tellers, alternative medicine, and other unsupported claims has hurt them or others.

[troutman]

July 12-15, Las Vegas

http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/

The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM) is an annual celebration of science, skepticism and critical thinking. People from all over the world come TAM each year to share learning, laughs and the skeptical perspective with their fellow skeptics and a host of distinguished guest speakers and panelists. Make sure follow @jref on Twitter for the latest #TAM2012 news and announcements.

[troutman]

Bigfoot stunt ends in death
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/20.../20148956.html

A U.S. prankster trying to enact a Bigfoot hoax was struck by two vehicles and killed on Sunday night.

Randy Lee Tenley, 44, clad in a ghillie suit, was in the middle of the highway on the right-hand lane when a 15-year-old girl hit Tenley, another car swerved, then a 17-year-old girl ran him over, the Montana Highway Patrol said.

[BigFlameDog]

My new favorite, non hockey, thread.

Thanks Trout...et al.

[Thor]

We really need a way to instill skeptical thinking into early education, because mass media, mass social media, its a plague of nonsense and bunk that people buy into in frighteningly huge numbers.

Take this case on FB, a friend posted this horrible sounding petition, with a picture that breaks your heart.

http://www.causes.com/actions/167927...&utm_source=fb

PETITION: Please help stop French Islanders using live dogs and kittens as shark bait


After my initial shock and sadness at that image my first reaction was, really, could this actually be true.

So about 2 mins of work and here's snopes with a "partially true but quite inaccurate" verdict:

http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/sharkbait.asp

The petition has near 200,000 signatures. That is frightening to me.

[troutman]

The CAM Practitioner As Enabler (Or Death by Pseudoscience)
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/...doscience.html

Often I am asked, “what’s the harm” of believing in and using fanciful or magical medical treatments. If it makes people feel better, who cares if it’s not real? Well, there are many kinds of harm, but perhaps the most insidious is simply instilling and reinforcing in people a belief in nonsense and a simultaneous distrust of science and reason.

In medicine, putting one’s faith in demonstrable baloney can lead to a delay in getting proper care. One might argue that the individual has the right to choose his or her own care and interventions, but this (while true) minimizes and even dismisses the role of the alternative practitioner in this decision-making process.

In my opinion the mere existence of alternative “professions” and practitioners enables fear and irrationality in health care decision-making. They subvert the purpose of informed consent. They provide an illusion, a false choice, that distracts and lures patients away from rational health care by tempting them with magical wish-fulfillment right when they are most vulnerable.

CAM proponents frequently dispense comforting or appealing misinformation, luring people away from the often hard choices and scary options provided by honest science-based medicine, and then scream “consumer choice” whenever any standards or quality control threatens to restrict their ability to extract money from the public.

Regulation of unscientific philosophy-based health professions, however, has never resulted in actual quality control or protecting the public from nonsense. It actually makes the problem worse, by legitimizing pseudoscience and providing plausibility to the enablers. Licensing pseudoscience makes the government complicit in fraud and medical harm.

[Thor]

A CPer posted this on FB:

http://whatstheharm.net/chiropractic.html

368,379 people killed, 306,096 injured and over $2,815,931,000 in economic damages

What's the harm in going to a chiropractor?

In its original form, chiropractic is a form of energy medicine based on unscientific principles such as 'innate intelligence'. To be fair, not all current chiropractors still believe in these concepts. Read more about chiropractic

Here are 312 people who were harmed by someone not thinking critically.

[troutman]

No Health Benefits from Organic Food

The recent review of organic vs conventional produce agrees with previous systematic reviews that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that organic produce is healthier or more nutritious that conventional produce. Despite the scientific evidence, the alleged health benefits of organic produce is the number one reason given by consumers for buying organic. This likely represents the triumph of marketing over scientific reality.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/...-organic-food/

A recent review of 240 studies has concluded that:

The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods. Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by troutman

No Health Benefits from Organic Food

The recent review of organic vs conventional produce agrees with previous systematic reviews that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that organic produce is healthier or more nutritious that conventional produce. Despite the scientific evidence, the alleged health benefits of organic produce is the number one reason given by consumers for buying organic. This likely represents the triumph of marketing over scientific reality.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/...-organic-food/

A recent review of 240 studies has concluded that:

The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods. Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Interesting, I have long thought "ogranic food" was a food of the rich. What are the thoughts on the "pesticide/chemicals" from non-organic foods. We have a neightbour that is organic nuts and this is her main argument. Oh, and that all non-organic is run by big business and therefore is bad.......

[endeavor]

Originally Posted by Thor

A CPer posted this on FB:

http://whatstheharm.net/chiropractic.html

This was my favorite one

http://whatstheharm.net/moonlandingdenial.html

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Interesting, I have long thought "ogranic food" was a food of the rich. What are the thoughts on the "pesticide/chemicals" from non-organic foods. We have a neightbour that is organic nuts and this is her main argument. Oh, and that all non-organic is run by big business and therefore is bad.......

For the most part pesticide risks are overstated by organic food supporters - that doesn't mean there's no risk, but there are some pretty big safety factors built into the maximum allowable pesticide residues on food. How much risk there really is would depend on the specific pesticide used, how much below the limits the residue on the food is, and how well it is washed.

You get more toxic chemicals including carcinogens just from what is naturally produced in the plants - one study I read suggested on average about 99% of the total toxic potential of food could be from the naturally present chemicals. Also, organic foods can have pesticides, they just have to be non-synthetic (which does not automatically mean less toxic). So saying that organic foods are safer because of the absence of pesticides is probably at the very least an over-simplification.

[Hanni]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

For the most part pesticide risks are overstated by organic food supporters - that doesn't mean there's no risk, but there are some pretty big safety factors built into the maximum allowable pesticide residues on food. How much risk there really is would depend on the specific pesticide used, how much below the limits the residue on the food is, and how well it is washed.

You get more toxic chemicals including carcinogens just from what is naturally produced in the plants - one study I read suggested on average about 99% of the total toxic potential of food could be from the naturally present chemicals. Also, organic foods can have pesticides, they just have to be non-synthetic (which does not automatically mean less toxic). So saying that organic foods are safer because of the absence of pesticides is probably at the very least an over-simplification.

I find the whole organic food argument to be similar to that of the anti vaccine movement. People are lucky that today/in the west they can afford to have these stupid opinion, we don't have to deal with food shortages or disease outbreaks. There is a reason for that and it's modern medical and farming practices. If they could see what life was like before these improvements I think they would have a different opinion.

Everyone is an expert until it really starts to affect their lives. Pesticides are bad, okay fine, lets ban them and see what happens when the price of food skyrockets and you can no longer afford to feed your family. Vaccines cause autism, lets stop immunizations until your child dies or becomes disabled from measles. There are perfectly logical reasons that life spans and standards of living have done nothing but increase and stepping backwards in time isn't going to help continue that trend.

[arsenal]

speaking of the anti vaccine movement, check out #1 on the list (and related articles).
http://www.cracked.com/article_20007...-world_p2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full

[Hanni]

Originally Posted by arsenal

speaking of the anti vaccine movement, check out #1 on the list (and related articles).
http://www.cracked.com/article_20007...-world_p2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full

This is somewhat old news already, if you're not up to speed just google the world renowned immunologist Jenny McCarthy

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Hanni

This is somewhat old news already, if you're not up to speed just google the world renowned immunologist Jenny McCarthy

oh trust me....I have.....and it is worth it.....

[ernie]

I've never bought the organic food argument about pesticides etc. However, in many cases I do buy organic foods. Why? Because in those cases where I do buy an organic brand the item simply tastes better than the non-organic competitor or it is from a local farm (and tastes as good).

[Hanni]

Originally Posted by ernie

I've never bought the organic food argument about pesticides etc. However, in many cases I do buy organic foods. Why? Because in those cases where I do buy an organic brand the item simply tastes better than the non-organic competitor or it is from a local farm (and tastes as good).

There is an argument against getting everything local as well, but I think there is nothing wrong with buying local, from say the farmers market, when certain things are in season. However, if you think all your food should be locally grown there are economic reasons why that just doesn't work or make sense when you look at global food supply.

But I do agree that when local means fresher, it typically means better tasting. I know the raspberries out of my girlfriends moms patch taste a lot better than the store bought ones that cost a fortune.

[HELPNEEDED]

I'm skeptical about that Flames players and their advocacy for charities.

[troutman]

Melba Ketchum announces Bigfoot DNA results. Without the data


http://doubtfulnews.com/2012/11/melb...hout-the-data/

What is wrong with story? Oh, where to begin…

We don’t know who the team of scientists is. Melba has been silent. The collected data is suspect, the analysis is suspect, the conclusions are suspect. EVERYTHING is suspect because there is no data for anyone else to examine, the procedure and results have not yet been published and there is NO OTHER reliable physical evidence, traces or history of such an indigenous people.

To make such an extraordinary claim is to put yourself out on such a long, unstable limb! It is not how science is done, it’s how pseudoscience is done. But, let’s just say that Dr. K has results and is confident in them. She sure is in a pickle now because there is still NO paper and no hint of when or where it will be published. Much is going on behind the scenes that the interested public is not privy to. To be practical, this announcement gets us absolutely NO further to a Bigfoot discovery than yesterday or the day before. It’s still vaporware. No paper, no data, no body, no Bigfoot.