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Bad Science Writer Talks About the Placebo Effect *NSFW*
The Guardian newspaper's Bad Science columnist Dr. Ben Goldacre does a stand-up routine about medicine, the placebo effect, and the mysteries of the human body at Nerdstock. From a scientific standpoint, I can't accurately say how funny it is because I was told it was great before I saw it.
Or do you just think he is because he said he was going to?
newfag
I can highly recommend Ben's book "Bad Science". I bought a copy for each of my family members for the holidays. It gives a very realistic overview of the current state of medical research, both from the "mainstream" and "alternative" medicine worlds.
Those are some badass anecdotes.
Citation Needed.
And now, neither can the rest of us.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
That thoughts create and manifest themselves in the physical world.
I liked that. Either he's a really good speaker, or he's a mediocre speaker that's successfully put in a lot of work at getting better :)
If you try to watch it all the way through, you'll get diarrhea.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How many sugar pills did he take before he did this routine?
Here's a much better version of this performance with a good sound quality: 6Nerdstock: Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People
Seems the BBC didn't want to transmit this year's Nerdstock (aka Nine Lessons for Godless People). Oh well.
Play at 80% speed, and you can understand the man.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Guys, I expected titties but there was just a guy talking.
Why is this marked NSFW?
Signing off, from Germany.
What's with the reverb when the audience laughs?
It is hard for me to fathom television in which something relevant and intelligent is presented, with a slight bit of profanity (just enough but not too much) and where the crowd is excited to hear it. Instead I turn on my television in the US and see the bitter dregs of society: The Real Housewives of ..., Jersey Shore, anything on the Oprah network, etc. Perhaps Dr. Goldacre has a placebo cure for those kinds of shows?
Could not find the vomiting study in the rotating drum but I believe the muscle relaxant study was of Carisoprodol and can be found at this PDF. The asthma placebo effect study appears to be this study on this new bronchodilator.
If you're saying "citation needed" to imply that the placebo effect is not real, then I ask you why so many reputable institutions almost require a placebo group? It's obviously so they are capable of renormalizing the results to account for the placebo effect and not wrongly attribute their drug to something the patients caused themselves to believe they felt or to actually feel.
I might take issue with his claim that the placebo effect 'caused the muscle relaxant molecules to be more effective in relaxing the muscles' (or however he rambled it) as I have always thought that the placebo effect operated on a psychosomatic or neurological level.
My work here is dung.
Can someone tell me at when the funny part is so I can fast forward to that point?
The mind have various strings it can pull to produce and help the body. E.g. we all know that if we want to get excited, you can make the body release adrenaline. The body and mind is somehow defined as a dead tool of some, however I think it's time we accept that the mind and body is a living organism designed to react and behave by stimulants beyond drugs.
so, what he tell is hardly surprising.
Not that I don't find placebo effects interesting, but what is it about a certain species of skeptic that says (in this case, explicitly says) they think the concept of people healing themselves through mental processes, whether you call it psychic or otherwise, is uninteresting and entirely unscientific to investigate.
Call the same thing "The Placebo Effect" however, and suddenly it's fascinating and scientific?
WTF Over?
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
that video is from 2009 (or maybe even from 2008)
Ben posted it again to his blog around xmas 2010, but that doesn't make it any newer.
a NSFW article on Slashdot. I've been missing those. I fondly remember the days when I used to come into work just for the thrill of watching NSFW videos while at work. I don't get that opportunity enough these days.
OK, now what is all this about... shit. Hold on.
OK. Dammit! I'll finish this post later.
I find his examples impressive, but even more impressive is the study that shows the placebo effect works even when you know it's a placebo.
Essentially, because we've been told that the placebo effect is real, our bodies will do the right thing _because we know the placebo effect is real_. I would like to see a study where they differentiate between telling people "This is a placebo" and "This doesn't do anything, you're just a control". Then we'll see if there's a placebo effect placebo effect.
I don't have a citation for this, but then neither did that guy so here goes. There was a study where they caused the subjects to feel pain then gave gave them a saline injection but called it morphine, so of course the pain subsided. They did this for several days, varying the location and intensity of the pain, each time followed by the "morphine" until one day they added to the saline a compound that blocks morphine's effect on the body, that is you take this and morphine and the morphine is nullified. Despite the patients not being told about the new addition to their injection, the placebo effect did not take place and the subjects continued to feel pain.
It wasn't funny, it was British :)
On the other hand, this guy should start reading for a collegiate text audio book company. I think his extremely rapid speech is much better than speeding up a normal audio book. This way, you can cover a chapter or two of text reading while driving to class.
From another Dr Ben item, research has found that if a given tried and tested drug shows say 80% effectiveness in patients and a new 'improved' one comes out, the previous one stops being so effective by quite a margin. Only the latest newest one works best.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Placebo effect applies to other things too. For example, most elevator "close doors" buttons have been "wired" to do absolutely nothing for the past 20 years or so.
Bow before me, for I am root.