Penn and Teller Bullshit

[Fred]

Does anyone else watch the show ritualistically? I must admit, it is rather amusing.

However intellectually its a little bit troubling. To begin with, they often resort to debunking in the most obscene way (eg pick a 'dumb' target and then go to town).

Some of their shows are lacking in science (even if they may be right) and use some of the methods they themselves find so repulsive (it is this way b/c we say so).

The skeptic community was always founded on the principle of fairness. One then would turn to experimentation, followed by clear rational thought to eliminate possible theories. The second one gets away from that, is the day the movement dies and the frauds of the world win by discrediting us as pushing an agenda.

We don't think John Edwards is a crank b/c Penn and Teller think talking to ghosts is ridiculous. We do b/c we've never seen one shred of solid lab evidence showing his seances are anything more than just guess work.

Some of the recent shows kinda tread on murky territory scientifically. The environment one for instance, (they call out a bunch of environmentalists). Personally, I'm very pleased at this (the pro environmental people can be hardcore nutjobs), but as a scientist I have to say its exceedingly premature to go as far as they do. Whats troubling is they may actually be *WRONG*, its not clear cut like they make it seem. Their skeptic witnesses are also far from fool proof authorities on the matter for instance.

Thoughts?

 

[Natoma]

They have a real show? I thought they were a comedy group who only showed up during New Years Rock with Dick Clark.

Wow. You learn something new everyday. I've never seen or heard of their cable show, but god are they annoying at the New Years Rock show.

 

[Tagrineth]

We don't think John Edwards is a crank b/c Penn and Teller think talking to ghosts is ridiculous. We do b/c we've never seen one shred of solid lab evidence showing his seances are anything more than just guess work.

They did demonstrate that cold reading can be done by anyone.

 

[DemoCoder]

Fred, it is possible to demonstrate a simpler theory that fits the facts. That's why Penn&Teller and James Randi do.

It's not enough to simply claim there is no evidence to support Edwards, because Edwards does "experiments" on his TV show every day that provide evidence for his powers.

What skeptics do is show that someone "without powers" can achieve the same outcome. Read into what you will.

It's also good to have skeptics confront apocalypic environmentalists who stretch their conclusions past the domain of their theory, or who take unproven hypothesises, and inflate them so large to try and "scare up support" for their theory, instead of doing actual science.

 

[Fred]

'because Edwards does "experiments" on his TV show every day that provide evidence for his powers. '

Yea but they are not controlled double blind experiments, and thats the point. Mr Edwards has promptly refused to do any such test for obvious reasons.

That Penn and Teller can output the same sort of general reading tricks, is not a refutal of Mr Edwards really, unless you propose Occams razor. But an experiment could remove any doubt.

Still, it doesnt bother me so much when they took him on in that particular episode, but rather some of their other shows leaves me a little wanting for more debunking evidence, even though I know they are right.

 

[Vince]

That Penn and Teller can output the same sort of general reading tricks, is not a refutal of Mr Edwards really, unless you propose Occams razor. But an experiment could remove any doubt.

Still, it doesnt bother me so much when they took him on in that particular episode, but rather some of their other shows leaves me a little wanting for more debunking evidence, even though I know they are right.

Exactly, actually this is kind of ironic as I was thinking along the same lines during Friday night's episode on Magnetic Medicine/Healing. I was most unimpressed with their 'testing' of the common notion that due to the presence of Fe2+ in hemeprotein subunits they are inherently ferromagnetic and will lead to higher densities in the region of a magnetic field.

Ok, so prove it. This is at the core of the issue and here's your chance to show publicly that this is 100% horseshit. Give us something tangible to prove it, explain a process which shows that RBC densities are constant throught the plasma, regardless of the extended presence of a magnetic field or not.

But, instead they show a liter of blood in a bowl and hold a magnet up to it as if we're going to see a contemporary vision of Moses parting the Red Sea. This topic is a nobrainer, to begin with, as far as magnetic susceptibility goes, oxyhemoglobin is diamagnetic. And to compound it, the iron is burried in the subunits/globin chains and would be significantly less than 1% of a a typical protein alpha/betachain. Explain this to us, go through the thinking and give an explanation/theory/hypothesis of why they're lying bastards, then move to praxis and explain fMRI's briefly and a simple extended experimental proof they can accomplish and that's it. Case closed.

It was then (this "experiment") that I started thinking along the lines of you Fred. I mean, I love the show and their ideology of exposing these frauds; and I love their style and blunt comedy. Hell, who am I to criticize someone for going off the deep-end when confronting stupidity - but the point still stands that the level of scientific explanation and basis for their positions has been diminishing as of late.

Who knows if there really is a benefit to magnets, I can't rule it out knowing what I do, nor can anyone at this point. Yet, we can state that if in the highly unlike circumstance there is... it certainly isn't by a mechanic these assholes are talking about and selling product based on.