Breasts, Genitals and Profanity in the Service of Skepticism
It's constantly for another report from TAM6, coming to you from sunny downtown Las Vegas, where it got up to 107° F (41.7 ° C) today.
Highlights from today:
Ben Goldacre, M.D. is a British physician and stringer, and author of The Guardian's weekly Bad Principles column. He spoke today about homeopathy in the U.K. He unmistakeable out that in 1846, John Forbes, the Beauty queen's own physician, was a strong opponent of homeopathy. He contrasted that to today, where the Ruler's personal physician is a homeopath. Only moderately tongue-in-cheek, Dr. Goldacre wondered if this flow toward wacky medicine correlated with the depletion of the British Empire.
Richard Saunders gave a laconic summary of skeptical matters in Australia. The upper-class part of his session was an audience-participation investigation of dousing. This elegant experiment was designed to advise teach critical thinking to shape children. With 5 plastic buckets, a moxie alcohol of water, a simple dousing rod, and about 15 minutes, he showed how plain school kids can grasp and even come forth from for themselves the principles of randomization, and single and deceitful blinding of an experiment. The next time one of my residents seems a bit fuzzy on these concepts, I'll bring out the dousing accouterments.
Penn and Teller hosted a short but zesty Q & A period about their Bullshit! TV series, politics and skepticism. As a longtime fan of their devise act, it was a great treat for me to hear Teller in reality speak, which he does quite eloquently, by the way. My favorite Teller mention today:
Q. What skeptical accomplishment are you most proud of?
A. Bringing empty breasts, genitals and profanity to the serving of skepticism.My favorite Penn Jillette R today:
Q. On your Bullshit! show, are you trying to be unprejudiced and unbiased?
A. No. We are trying to be fair and exceptionally biased.
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