Skepticism
Skepchick Quickies, 8.31
- Are placebos getting more and more effective?
- Standing broom has folks strawstruck. Don’t blame me for that headline, by the way. (From Steve.)
- Himalayan Bigfoot to undergo DNA testing. (From Steve.)
- Legal case against God dismissed. (From jes3ica.)
Talk about getting dismissed on a technicality.
Okay, I’m a believer now. Just one thing. The article never quite got around to saying which religion the broom represents. Who’s my god?
@mikespeir: Its the leprechans!
I want to let everyone here know that I will be opening a gallery here in New York to sell and display my artwork. As I was setting up I noticed that there is an enchanted paintbrush suspended in midair in the showroom. I can’t figure out how it works!
Anyway the gallery opens next week. You should all stop by and purchase… er, see this miracle before it’s too late!
I am curious in a childish way as to what’s holding the broom up. But not in a supernatural way. My bet’s on the bristles sticking in the flooring, so it stands slightly off-center, but not *too* off-center.
What good luck for new business owers! They’re sure to clean up after allthe publicity!
I bet the floor’s crooked. That’ll give you a “vortex” every time.
The Wired article on the nuances of the placebo effect was very interesting. The notion that placebos can be used to augment healing is plausible. The problem I have with the article is the proposed solution to the ethical dilemna of doctors deceiving their patients with inert treatments.
The article suggests that this ethical conundrum can be overcome by playing semantic games. The doctor can carefully phrase their medical advice in such a way that the doctor is not technically lying.
At that point, am I being treated by a doctor or a lawyer?
Yes, he (or He) has an address. 7 Salvation Road, Stratford-upon-Heaven. Just give the papers to some dying holy man and he will serve him.
I think it’s ghosts praying to Jesus via their magnetic crystals to rid the broom’s aura of toxins, thus allowing a quantum 11-dimensional superstring to keep the broom upright, in accordance with Intelligent Falling Theory.
That placebo article got me thinking about Brain Candy. Haven’t seen that in a while. Might have to rent it again.
I thought it was strange that the article about the placebo effect said “the so-called placebo effect—has long been considered an embarrassment to the serious practice of pharmacology.”
Really? An embarrassment?
The Standing Broom story just shows how low the economy has sunk. Even God with his Omniscient knowledge, and 6013 years or 13.5 – 14 Billion years of experience, depending on who you ask, can only get a job as a janitor.
@ Andres: “Yes, he (or He) has an address. 7 Salvation Road, Stratford-upon-Heaven. …”
Or better yet, send the papers to ‘The Wailing Wall, Isreal. – [The remains of] the temple … thought to be the place where God resides on earth. Praying at the Wailing Wall signifies being in the presence of the Divine.
see:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-wailing-wall.htm
I’m just glad there were the stories about placebos, the God lawsuit, and Bigfoot DNA, or this blog would have been so popular, there would be standing broom only.
@infinitemonkey: :|
@infinitemonkey: COTW
(shakes head)
Go have another cup of coffee, infinite.
@numsix: Don’t encourage him! We’ll soon be buried in an avalanche of puns.
@Skept-artist: that will be our pun-ishment?
@Skept-artist: I can’t point fingers. I’m currently guilty of using the name “Quetzupbotl”.
“It doesn’t stand up in any other spot, except when it does, but fortunately it still stays up when moved back.” Wha?
Now watch me get rich from using it as a heat sink for my stirling engine.
Oh, and the article on the placebo effect was excellent!
@numsix: *Looks for pun-removal spray*
@Steve: “..eat cheese out of magic vessels” Gorgeous.
@SkepLit: Yeah, I didn’t like that either. Plus, if the patient is someone who researches what the doctor prescribes, then they may not get the effect anyway.
@infinitemonkey:
@infinitemonkey: Le’mme try that again <groan>
Himalayan Bigfoot . . .
When I was a kid I was completely into Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and similar monster myths. I used to love scouring the local library for books on similar subjects.
Daniel Cohen, the author of this article, was a name I always looked for because he has written scores of books similar subjects: ghosts, UFOs, werewolves, vampires, monsters and the like.
Then, of course, I grew up.
It was still fun this morning to see this post and read something “new” about my old childhood fascination Bigfoot. And seeing Daniel Cohen’s name made me feel like a kid again (in a good way).
I guess some things (and apparently even some people) never change.
:)
@Skept-artist: I believe that canned aerosol cheese is one of the defining inventions of the 20th century.
@Steve: Canned aerosol “cheese-like substances” are an abomination before Wisconsin and are a Weapon of Culinary Mass Destruction!!! :-P
In other words, EWWWWWWW!!!
@QuestionAuthority: I don’t think our statements are necessarily in conflict with each other. :-D
Yeah ok, so I went and got my broom and tried this, guess what, in about 2 seconds I had it standing on it’s own.
http://erikthebassist.squarespace.com/critical-inquiry/2009/9/1/standing-broom-only-stole-that-pun-from-a-skepchick-poster-p.html
@erikthebassist: Nice! Maybe broom-standing could become the new spoon-bending.
Ok now, the story of the Yeti predate Big foot by a few generations. He is the original ape-man.
It is bigfoot that is an ‘American yeti’ and not the other way around, get you fact straight people!
The broom still stands ;-) I’ll keep ya posted if it falls lol. Maybe I can make my kitchen a mecca for believers and make some cash off this? lol
@Simon39759: Are you positive? While I don’t know it intimately, I thought the Indian legends of such things also went back a ways (to the point we can’t really tell when they started).
The placebo one reminded me of something that happened when I was a kid. My sister, now a fundamentalist Christian, used to get terrible headaches that the doctor couldn’t diagnose. Aspirin didn’t help. So my mom went and got a bag of red hots and a fancy bottle with a label and filled the bottle with the red hots. Whenever my sister had an “headache” she got a red hot and it made it better.