The Pseudo Scientists Podcast-Episode 13
15Jun. 09
INTRO: Re-Introductions, Superstition and our Parents, Skeptic Zone Event.
ON THE STREET: Mind Body Wallet.
INTERVIEW: Chris KP — Science Communicator and Entertainer.
NEWS: Circumcision Laws, Oprah Gets Panned by Newsweek, Scientology on Trial.
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June 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I’m absolutely speechless listening to the astral traveling people.
They could hire them to write Stargate episodes or something.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Love the podcast, keep up the good work. Enjoy on the street and all that you do.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Attention Pseudo Scientist fans! Head to the forums now and join in the discussion for ideas to counter John Edwards’ Australian tour!!
June 25th, 2009 at 10:21 am
First I want to congratulate you on an excellent show. I’ve been listening since episode 2 and this was a great one (I have no idea which was best). SGU quality.
Second, thanks for the circumcision data. i have a son about to pop out any moment, I read the post about it at science based medicine and came away with a feeling of “mehhh”. The new information you brought up about the cochrane review was important to me.
But you left out some important discusion about risk vs reward. You mentioned some fo the complications of snipped off a snork, but you didnt mention incidence rates. Since you are all young and you mentioned the low snip rate in Oz, I presume most of the men on the show are not snipped.
I am snipped. I am also not religious and I have no feeling that nature knows best (otherwise I wouldn’t have removed my wisdon teeth). My unit works great I am happy to say and I have never had any of the effects you are talking about. But I am VERY conflicted about snipping my son. My wife is all for it for two reasons:
1) she is worried about infections and smegma due to poor cleaning (the cheezy stuff that has been mentioned)
2) she doesnt like how it looks (even though she is french)
3) she is concerned my sun will be made fun of in the locker room (I’m in america with a high snip rate)
These arent great reasons to snip. She admits it. I certainly admit it. and the cochrane data you gave is relevant for high AIDS and STD infection rates. but my son may, in 20 years be in one of those areas (heck for a while there I thought this country was heading there)
So you mentioned the reward. And you mentioned the risks. but you didnt mention any rates so its hard to really make an assesment.
Most of my friends have had thier turtlenecks turned into t-shirts as a kid. None of them think about it, none of them are resentful of it. Its a rare case that this happens.
If there is no good reason to do it, and no good reason not to, then you shoudlnt do it. you muddied the water by givign some little reason to do it, without giving the rates of why not to.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Oh and the real reason I posted something.… I’ll post this in the forum also.
Please use my bingo software for the psychic crap.
I wrote some software to make bingo cards for creationist/evolution debates. It attacks most of the common canards in that arena. I like ti because its an game you can play on a computer if there is nonsense on TV. but more importantly it makes booklets.
The first page of the booklet is a randomized bingo card, the following pages describe WHY the square is describing nonsense. The links they can follow are listed if they want more information.
The version for the computer has the descriptions and links readily available. Please use it!
here it is.
I dont have a psychic version. This is becuase it is a lot of work to put together these things properly so they are an educational tool. However there are 5 of you (sometimes more!). If you make a word file or an excel file with a table with what you want in a box and its corresponding hyperlinked description. I’ll make a psychic bingo file for the game so you can make bingo cards.
You can email me if you have any problems
June 25th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
The Oprah Winfrey Nutwork?
June 25th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Hey TechSkeptic,
Thank you for your comment. We really appreciate the positive feed back. Yeah, it was very hard to find rates for this “circum“stance. To be honest we didn’t really think about it. There isn’t a big issue with it here in Australia but we understand that America is a different story. There was a “fad” if you will during the 60 – 70’s that it was “really good” to circumcise new borns. It was seen as cleaner etc at the time. Now, it probably isn’t really any cleaner than uncircumcised and “smegma” comes down to personal hygiene which is something that you will have to instill into your son. While I was personally the one who read out that cochrane review on the website, I would still be wary to circumcise my own children. Maybe this is an irrational thing, but again, in Australia it isn’t something that is really thought about.
Cheers,
Elliot Birch