Inflammation Pseudoscience (Conspirituality podcast #321)

Inflammation is an important and necessary part of the body’s healing process. It’s also long been a wellness buzzword used to sell products that do very little to treat it. This week, we look at inflammation through the lens of a new Mother Jones article, “The Great Inflammation Panic,” including an interview with the author, Julia Métraux, in segment two. We’ll also discuss what inflammation is, how wellness influencers weaponize it, and what it represents in the context of Ayurveda.

Interview: 

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/321-inflammation-pseudoscience

How Pseudoscientists Lie To You

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0lNyWOQAdAc

 

Unravelling The Telepathy Tapes (Conspirituality podcast episode #241)

One of the top podcasts in the world—even beating out Rogan for a few hours—is popularizing a well-meaning intervention for non-speaking autistic people. Unfortunately, that intervention happens to be a proven failure, and may set autistic and disability rights discourse back by decades.

Filmmaker Ky Dickens’s The Telepathy Tapes podcast delves into the world of Facilitated Communication, in which non-speaking people are believed to miraculously gain access to complex written language after lives of silence. According to Dickson, non-speaking people can also gather in transdimensional spaces and channel spiritual knowledge.

But there’s a problem. Every controlled test shows that the messages produced through letterboards and iPads are coming from the facilitators—not the non-speaking persons.

In this episode, Matthew interviews experts in pseudoscience and autism, including Janyce Boynton, a former (now dissident) practitioner of Facilitated Communication who explains how seductive and promising it was to practice, but how it ultimately steals agency and dignity from the autistic client.

And... this is also a story about parents dealing with crushing levels of unpaid and invisible labour. They are already doing miraculous work. A fantasy is no replacement for true support and recognition.
Interview: 

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/241-unravelling-the-telepathy-tapes

 

Trump’s Conspiracist Cabinet (Conspirituality podcast episode #234)

Since the election, Democratic voter disbelief and despair has alternated between grief and rage. We watched some erstwhile vociferous critics of Trump in the legacy media, like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, kiss the ring and bend the knee, while others adopted a contorted posture of seeming legitimization, like NPR hosting Leonard Leo for a nice long sit-down interview.

Meanwhile, the big egos of MAGA 2.0 seem to rise like Soviet propaganda banners over the American landscape. Trump has named his cabinet picks at lightning speed. His list includes a pro-wrestling executive, a Hare Krishna cult member, a tech billionaire, an anti-vax conspiracy peddler, a FOX News host with far-right tattoos, an alt-med snake oil salesman, two sex offenders, a COVID-contrarian doctor—and, contrary to his claiming to know nothing about it during the election, prominent Project 2025 authors.

What most high profile nominations all have in common is being completely unqualified for the job. Maybe that’s the point. We look at the cabinet picks that intersect with our beat, as pseudoscience conspiracism now completes its journey from the social fringes to deciding White House policies—and all the consequences that entails.
Interview: 

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/234-trumps-conspiracist-cabinet

The war on rationality | Steven Pinker

There is no force in the Universe called progress. But there are plenty of natural forces that seem to only make it harder for us to make progress as a species, such as disease, the laws of entropy, and the dark sides of human nature.

So, what pushes humanity forward in the face of all these obstacles? To the psychologist Steven Pinker, the answer is rationality: When people use their reasoning skills and other cognitive abilities to help improve the lives of others, the result is progress.

From pseudoscience to religious extremism, irrational beliefs can cause real harm. That’s why Pinker argues that society would be better off if more people learned to be more rational.

Read the video transcript: https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/rationality/

0:00 The bad news: reality
0:39 The good news: rationality
1:26 How rational are we?
3:04 Even Americans, though? (Rationality inequality)
4:45 The pinnacle of human rationality
5:45 How can you teach critical thinking? How?

Video: https://youtu.be/qdzNKQwkp-Y

RationalWiki

"Our purpose here at RationalWiki includes:

1. Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement;
2. Documenting the full range of crank ideas;
3. Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism;
4. Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media.

We welcome contributors, and encourage those who disagree with us to register and engage in constructive dialogue.

We have 7,465 articles for your enjoyment."

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

Michael Gordin on the Fringe of Where Science Meets Pseudoscience (The Michael Shermer Show podcast 191)

Everyone has heard of the term “pseudoscience”, typically used to describe something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unproven. Many would be able to agree on a list of things that fall under its umbrella — astrology, phrenology, UFOlogy, creationism, and eugenics might come to mind. But defining what makes these fields “pseudo” is a far more complex issue. Given the virulence of contemporary disputes over the denial of climate change and anti-vaccination movements — both of which display allegations of “pseudoscience” on all sides — there is a clear need to better understand issues of scientific demarcation. Shermer and Gordin explore the philosophical and historical attempts to address this problem of demarcation.

Interview: 

https://www.podbean.com/ew/dir-8na49-f1d49db

Why Trust Science? with Author Naomi Oreskes (Union of Concerned Scientists, Got Science?)

Science Historian Naomi Oreskes explains why science's social character makes it trustworthy, and what we can learn from science's past.
Interview:
https://soundcloud.com/gotscience/ep-70-why-trust-science-with-author-naomi-oreskes

Jordan Peterson's Most Pseudoscientific Claim Ever

Jordan Peterson’s craziest claim ever didn’t come from his talk with Cathy Newman, it wasn’t in his chat with Sam Harris about truth, and it wasn’t made in conversation with Matt Dillahunty. It was in his Maps of Meaning lecture part 8 and his Biblical series. Representation of DNA? More like pseudoscience.....
https://youtu.be/iIfLTQAKKfg

Never Cry Wolfe: The Popular Pseudoscience of David "Avocado" Wolfe (Seth Andrews, The Thinking Atheist)

David "Avocado" Wolfe is a wellness celebrity with a huge following. But do his claims pass the science test? What explains his rising popularity? And what damage might result from the tips, tricks, advise and "wisdom" Wolfe is spreading to the eager masses?

Yvette d'Entremont, the SciBabe (www.scibabe.com) is a former analytical chemist, science blogger and activist. She joins Seth Andrews for a spirited (and strange) journey into the world of David Wolfe.
Interview:
http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/podcast/never-cry-wolfe-the-popular-pseudoscience-of-david-avocado-wolfe
https://youtu.be/Mx2-StRPlyk

I was skeptical that the anti-vaccine movement was gaining traction. Not anymore. (Vox)

Trump has energized the vaccine skeptics, and that's dangerous. ...
http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/2/15/14231266/anti-vaccine-movement-trump

Donald Trump and Robert Kenndy Jr Team Up to Spread Nonsense About Vaccines

This is the bad kind of bipartisanship....
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/donald-trump-rfk-steamy-on-set-romance

'Unbroken Brain' Explains Why 'Tough' Treatment Doesn't Help Drug Addicts (Terry Gross, Fresh Air)

..."We have this idea that if we are just cruel enough and mean enough and tough enough to people with addiction, that they will suddenly wake up and stop, and that is not the case," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross...
Interview:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/07/485087604/unbroken-brain-explains-why-tough-treatment-doesnt-help-drug-addicts

Trump's Team Is All Tied Up With Anti-Gay Pseudoscience

DURING THE PRESIDENTIAL campaign, President-elect Donald Trump was generous with his bigotry. But gay and lesbian Americans seemed largely to escape his scapegoating, despite the Republican Party’s entrenched homophobia. “The LGBT community, the gay community, the lesbian community—they are so much in favor of what I’ve been saying,” Trump said at a June campaign rally in Atlanta.

But if Trump was supposed to be the first gay-friendly GOPer in the White House, he has a funny way of showing it. Even setting aside vice president-elect Mike Pence’s support for homophobic policies as governor of Indiana, Trump has assembled a transition team and cabinet deeply tied to one of the most pernicious anti-gay groups around. The Family Research Council isn’t content to oppose homosexuality on religious grounds; instead, it uses pseudoscience to give its homophobia a flimsy veneer of objectivity. And it could wind up shaping the incoming president’s policies....
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/trumps-transition-team-tied-anti-gay-pseudoscience/