Episode #1027

Episode #1027

News Items

• Screen Time and Mental Health
• US Mass Shootings
• Stem Cells for Parkinson’s
• Brown Fat and Exercise

Interview with Dave Farina

• https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorDaveExplains

What's the Word

Psionic

Questions and Emails

Dear Skeptics, your show is a highlight of the week for me. I am sure I am not the first to point out inaccuracies in episode #1026 regarding the Texas measles outbreak. I certainly got the sense from the skeptics that fun was being poked at the recommendation to use vitamins in the treatment of measles. According to the WHO guidelines Vitamin A has been and continues to be a core treatment for measles, and Cod Liver Oil contains not only, Vit D as reported, but also Vit A. In the situation with the Mennonites its plausible that this traditional remedy would be more ‘palatable’ given their cultural norms than pills from the big bad government. For example Cochrane states that Vit A reduces death by 87% in children younger than 2. Any cursory search for measles treatment would have outlined the importance of Vitamin A. While I think the reporting content was uncharacteristically shoddy, it was actually the tone that I found more problematic. I agree with the general premise that RFK Jr. has been a dangerous vaccine skeptic but in this case he basically seems to recommending the correct treatment. While I understand the bias of judging RFK Jr. based on previous quackery, each time the skeptical community stoops to judging a current behaviour in this way it feeds the narrative that the sky is falling. If RFK Jr. starts to promote general health via exercise will that be taken at face value or also laughed off? Lest we forget, vaccine hesitancy and denialism exists on all sides of the political spectrum – I would hope the skeptics can try and stick to a more neutral and fact based approach. Keep up the great work. Tim Graham Canada

Interview

https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorDaveExplains

Science or Fiction [ Show Answers ]

• Item #1 Science

  Persian scholar, Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, proposed in the 11th century that India may have been connected to other continents in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Biruni

• Item #2 Science

  Aristarchus of Samos was the first to propose a heliocentric system, in which the Earth revolves around the sun in one year and rotates on its axis in one day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos

• Item #3 Science

  In his 1025 work, Muslim physician Ibn Sina proposed human-to-human transmission of disease through invisible entities, and was the first to propose a quarantine to limit the spread of contagion. https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/how-ibn-sina-s-work-became-a-guiding-light-for-scientists-facing-contagions-35440

Skeptical Quote of the Week.

‘The burden of proof as far as authentication is concerned is on the claimant—not on anyone else to prove a negative. Asserting that a particular image must be paranormal because it is unexplained only constitutes an example of the logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance. One cannot draw a conclusion from a lack of knowledge.’ Joe Nickell