Phil Plait - Don't be a Dick

This will just be a short post about a 30min lecture I really recommend for all my fellow skeptics. Phil Plait is an astronomer, a blogger, a skeptic, and just a nice guy (I decided that after listening to him talk but I haven't met him so I guess I don't know that for sure).

In this video Phil Plait talks about skeptic manners. Which is the best way to get people to think more critically? Do you behave like a dick and call people stupid, laugh at their mistakes etc etc (which I admit, can sometimes be tempting), or do you try to take your time to calmly explain why you believe what you believe.

In Phil Plaits words - how many of you became a critical thinker because someone called you an idiot? I think one guy in the audience raised his/her hand...

Anyway - check out the video below, and if you are interested in astronomy, Phil Plaits blog is the place to go: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

My favorite podcasts - Best podcasts

I have not been blogging for quite a while, however, this blog is not dead. The reason for my inactivity has been twofold. I have discovered podcasts (more about that in a moment) and I have become a father for the second time. These two "hobbies" of mine have consumed all my spare time and therefore the blog has suffered a bit, but I still feel I have a lot to write about and share with those who are interested.

If you have read any of my previous posts you will probably know that I am a great fan of The Teaching Company, a company that offers great courses for download (read my previous posts here.

Recently I have however mostly been listening to podcasts and I thought I would write a little about my favorite podcasts here. Unlike the teaching company courses, podcasts are normally free to download, although some depend on donations.

1. Skeptics Guide to the Universe - This is the podcast that I look forward to the most every week. Host, Steven Novella (a neurologist) and his fellow rouges discuss science news and discoveries from a skeptical perspective. You learn a lot of science by listening to this show and it is also highly entertaining in my opinion. Fantastic show really.

2. Skeptoid - Another excellent learning resource. Brian Dunning guides you through original sources on many issues including "was the pyramids built by slaves", "is asparthame dangerous (its not)", "organic vs conventional farming", "roswell" and many other topics. Dunning is also not afraid to admit that the jury is still out there if that is the case - he never makes conclusions that go beyond the evidence he has presented - great podcast.

3. Hardcore History and Common Sense - Reporter and excellent storyteller Dan Carlin is the man behind both of these two podcasts. In Hardcore History Carlin gives you some of the best accounts of various historical episodes that I have heard - I especially liked his four part podcast on "Ghosts on the Osfront" about operation Barbarossa - if you are the least bit interested in the second world war this is a must. In "Common Sense" Carlin sits and talks for himself about current events in the news, giving his perspective on things - and according to himself he always manages to piss of someone...

4. Dr.Karl and the Naked Scientist - Great science podcast. Although perhaps not as entertaining as the Skeptics guide to the galaxy this podcast is always very informative and it takes you through the biggest current science news in a way that most people can manage (unlike actually reading Nature and Science which many people find difficult). Some programs are Q&A where listeners can ask about any science question. I always learn a great deal from listening to this podcast.

5. This Week In Tech (TWIT) - This podcast is all about gadgets and new technology and is a great way for me to satisfy my need to hear about the most recent developments. If this is something you like too then I highly recommend this podcast.

6. 60-second science podcasts. "Scientific American" gives you three different 60-second long podcast where they take one news item and explains it very clearly in about 60 seconds, quite impressive if you ask me. Since I am into neuroscience my favorite is 60 second psych, but there is also 60-second earth and then there is the more general 60-science. They also have a longer show called Science Talk where they interview authors of important scientific publications. Also a great show.

7. NeuroPod - Official podcast of the journal "Nature Neuroscience". It simply takes you through their publications - much faster than it takes you to read the journal. Good resource for anyone into the field of Neuroscience.

8. ESPN Soccernet podcast - I am a science nerd and but I also love soccer and especially the Premier League. This podcast gives you all the analysis and transfer gossip you can handle.

9. Quackcast - Mark Crislip gives all medical quacks out there a hard time. If you think that vaccinations are dangerous or that conventional medicine is just one big conspiracy I hope that you will give this podcast a chance.

10. Rationally Speaking - Massimo Pigliucci has another another great podcast based on a skeptical approach. Because he is a philosopher he also gives a different perspective than Steven Novella from Skeptics Guide to the Galaxy. Another podcast which is also interesting and informative.

Swedish podasts:

1. SkeptikerPodden - Sveriges "Skeptics Guide to the Universe". Underhållande och informativ och med intressanta reportage. Min favorit är när ett Medium får kontakt med en död mor - bara det att modern aldrig var död... hmmmm. Bra jobbat SkeptikerPodden!

2. Godmorgon Världen - Enligt mig det bästa veckomagasinet med nyheter som finns.

What should you believe in? Shermers Baloney detection kit

When someone makes a claim, how do you decide whether to believe in that or not? If you believe everything anyone has told you, then you will soon have many many contradictory beliefs. Even if you only listen to people around you, you will still get contradictory information - all claims cannot be true. So how do you decide who to believe in?

Micheal Shermer, a famous sceptic suggests that we ask ourselves the following questions when we decide whether to believe in something. Why should you trust Shermer? Don't! You should question him just like everyone else, he is certainly a man with an agenda, so listen to someone who does not agree with Shermer and decide for yourself. Anyway here is what Shermer suggests you ask yourself when you hear a claim.

1. How reliable is the source?
2. Does the source often make similar claims?
3. Has the claim been confirmed elsewhere?
4. Does the claim fit with the way the world works?
5. Has anyone tried to falsify the claim?
6. What does the majority of the evidence point to?
7. Is the source basing their claim on science?
8. Is there positive evidence in favour of the theory (or is it only negative evidence)?
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomenon as the old theory?
10. Are personal beliefs or ideologies drive the claim?

2,5 Billion(!) dollars spent on search for alternative therapies...

Often when I debate alternative therapies or remedies with people they claim that there is no evidence in favor of alternative methods and therapies because no one bothers to investigate (and find the amazing effects), or that no money is given to investigators who want to test these remedies i.e. that the grant managers are against alternative therapies. These excuses are now no longer valid since the American government has spent 2,5 Billion dollars testing alternative therapies.

As was known and not unexpected from my point of view is that some alternative therapies do show minor benefits. Acupuncture works for certain things, yoga helps you relax which also results in other spin off effects. However a large majority of the therapies tested proved to be no better than placebo (if you think that placebo is "good enough" read my post here).

Also remarkable is how easy it seems to be to get a grant if you wan't to study alternative therapies (which by definition do not have a solid scientific theory behind them). In one instance 2 million dollars were given to study whether accupressure could help people loose weight. Now this large sum of money was given despite the fact that a pilot study on 60 participants had failed. The grant was given even though no scientist have ever found any evidence of meridians (in accupressure you are supposed to press on these meridians). I could go on, but the essence of the matter is that these 2 million dollars were given to a study that, judging from the evidence, had extremely low plausibility - I would even go as far as to say that if accupressure would prove to have an effect (beyond placebo) we would face a paradigm shift in biology.

There are of course some positive aspects of this endeavour. I suppose that it is normally good to test whether a really popular type of therapy works. However, the question is whether the people using a particular therapy cares about the outcome of a scientific study - my guess is that they will only care if it gives them a positive results, otherwise it is just biased scientists. I also have trouble seeing where to put the line, there are some really crazy ideas out there and if we would start to research everything that is getting popular we would end up spending huge amounts of money on evaluating pure nonsense.

I would personally prefer that grants are given to those who have good reasons for studying whatever it is they want to study, today that is not the case...

See also orsakverkan (swe)

Truth about the Atkins diet...

Would you like to be able to eat dishes such as the one above, and get thin at the same time? According to Robert Atkins, the man behind the infamous "Atkins diet", you can. I have quite a few acquaintances who have tried the Atkins diet and quite a few of those say that it has worked rather well for them. I also know of people on whom the diet did not have a huge effect, but perhaps they have not been very disciplined?

By nature I am skeptical of anything that sounds extraordinary, and when someone comes and claims that you can eat as much meat,fat sauce, cream, chicken etc etc as you like, AND lose weight, that, to me, is an extraordinary claim! Sometimes such radical claims turn out to be right, however most of the time they are wrong...

The bottom line of the Atkins diet is quite simple: avoid carbohydrates, especially fast carbohydrates, anything else is pretty much alright. To be a bit more precise you are supposed to avoid foods that have a high "glycemic index" or GI. Products that increase your blood sugar fast have high GI (examples would be sugar, white rice, pasta, beer, etc).

According to Atkins (see picture below), his diet works because the body requires carbojydrates to store fat, in other words, if there are no carbohydrates the fat will go right through the body. This is also why, according to Atkins and his followers, you can eat as much as you like, be it the ordinary 2000 calories or even 4000 calories in one day, and you will still loose weight.

So what is the truth here? I am of course no expert on these matters, but it seems to me that accumulating evidence clearly suggests that although the Atkins diet may work, it doesn`t do it the way Robert Atkins thought it did. Rather, the Atkins diet works because you eat less when you are on it. It turns out that when the brain decides whether we are hungry or not, and in extension whether we should crawl over to the fridge and get a slice of pizza, one factor that is taken into account is peptide YY. If there is a lot of peptide YY in the body then you are full, if there is little you should eat. What causes the release of peptide YY? You guessed it, proteins does, but not carbohydrates. This means that if you eat say 1500 calories of protein then you get a lot of peptide YY and therefore you feel full and stop eating. However, if on the other hand you eat 1500 calories worth of potatoes, little peptide YY is released and therefore will still feel hungry and unless you are one of those people with amazing self control, you will keep eating... Read more about this in this article from the economist.

The conclusion that the Atkins diet works because you eat less and not because you stop storing fat has been further confirmed by a recent large Harvard study. In this study they had their subjects eat the same amount of calories, but varied the source of those calories. Some subjects were given mostly carbohydrates, some were given mostly fats, and some were given mostly protein - but all got the same number of calories. Who lost most weight? According to Atkins theory, the fewer carbohydrates you eat, the more you should loose in weight, but this was not the case. The results showed that all the different groups lost equal amounts of weight.

So the bottom line of all this is that if you want to loose weight, eat less calories. One way to achieve this is to eat a lot of protein and little carbohydrates, because you will not be as hungry...