Penn and Teller Strike :)

Well this week they took on two distinct issues.
The first Steaming Pile of B.S. that they looked at was the complete lack of honesty and science behind the claims made by the WHO, American Lung Association, The American Cancer Association, the US EPA and many other anti-smoking organizations, about "SECOND HAND SMOKE" and its leading to lung cancer.

All of the mentioned organizations use the same EPA study which when examined in detail reveals no correlation between 2nd hand smoke and lung cancer or deaths. When confronted with the statistical facts the leaders of these organization fall back on a single premise. "We are only trying to make people healthier". I say all well and good but dammit, use science not scare tactics and lies to do it. These groups went from claiming 3000 deaths from second hand smoke to 3,000,000 annually....they just forget to mention they can't tell you a single name of anyone of those 3,000,000...you see the numbers were a statistical probability based on a number that never existed in the first place.....God I hate Junk Science.

The second revelation was the reletively new assault of fear tactics toward new parents. There are now millions of dollars to be made by convincing parents
that they cannot possibly be good parents unless they by a book, or a video, and that if they do not read to their baby in utero or play Mozart for the kid that they will be harming their child. P&T revealed the lack of serious clinical evidence for many of the claims, even the guy who first said that listening to Mozart or other classical music admits no real studies were done on babys or foetuses.....gaaaaaahhhhhh

Im gonna puke. People, we survived for thousands of years with no recorded music of any kind...raise your kids, don't spend $$$ on idiot scams.

Thats my P&T report for this week, see you all next week, when Penn and Teller take on the Sex industry......I may not be allowed to post much on next weeks show....

Edit: I do not and never have smoked, I don't have any love for big tobacco nor do I hate it. All I will say, is I prefer a smoke free environment but cannot stand for lies and junk scince.

[ 02-24-2003, 12:36 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[WillowIX]

Actually the latest EPA report concludes that 53,000 people will die from SHS. Not all of them by lung cancer. Some studies point out that SHS is harmful and possibly deadly to nonsmokers, an equal number of studies have indicated that the harms have been overstated or misclassified or that they are nonexistent.

Note: I do prefer a non-smoking environment myself. Not as a regard of cancer but merely I detest the smell. [img]smile.gif[/img]

With all due respect Ms. Willow I must disagree. When all was said and done, NONE of the experts against SHS could point to any study that didn't eventually rely on the intitial EPA study. If there were any studies available I would have expected the people speaking for the Various anti-smoke associations to have trotted them out.....

P&T seem to do a reasonable amount of research on their topics. All of the data presented by the "experts" against SHS, relied on the EPA study which has since been invalidated.....on the other hand, Im no MD and have done no research myself...sooooo Im just going with what was presented by P&T and what I have read elsewhere.

It should be noted that neither Penn nor Teller are smokers.

Those estimates of SHS deaths are speculation and predictions...no names, just numbers, unless you have a different list.

Do I think breasthing in particulates is good for you? not especially, but in the natural world, the air is not free of particulates either, there has always been harmful crap in the air, lets not use Junk science to vilify one over the other.

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by MagiK: With all due respect Ms. Willow I must disagree. When all was said and done, NONE of the experts against SHS could point to any study that didn't eventually rely on the intitial EPA study. If there were any studies available I would have expected the people speaking for the Various anti-smoke associations to have trotted them out..... P&T seem to do a reasonable amount of research on their topics. All of the data presented by the "experts" against SHS, relied on the EPA study which has since been invalidated.....on the other hand, Im no MD and have done no research myself...sooooo Im just going with what was presented by P&T and what I have read elsewhere. It should be noted that neither Penn nor Teller are smokers. Those estimates of SHS deaths are speculation and predictions...no names, just numbers, unless you have a different list. Do I think breasthing in particulates is good for you? not especially, but in the natural world, the air is not free of particulates either, there has always been harmful crap in the air, lets not use Junk science to vilify one over the other.

And with all due respect the EPA report is based on the initial research, NOT the other way around. [img]tongue.gif[/img] And when I mention studies above, I am not talking about governmetal or even governmental funded studies (or ACA/ALA). Rather individual papers from non funded studies by individual researchers. This has nothing to do with statistics, rather they investigate a possible relation between SHS and cancer, chronic airway disease (which can also kill) etc. Hand thise papers over to EPA and they´ll sort out the bits and pieces they want.

Note: I´m not arguing against you on this one MagiK. I´m totally with you! Destroy the EPA (=junk science) and let the true scientists speek.

[ 02-24-2003, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: WillowIX ]

Yeah I knew we were not arguing about the issue, but about the source. I don't get to see the scientists much (Im almost exclusively mixed in with a crowd of Sleep Scientists from NIH on a social footing) So all I hear about is the crap that gets pushed out to the media for propaganda.

Truth be told, I think smoking is rather nasty since it makes me hyper-sensitive to my real allergies, the smoke itself doesnt seem to set me off, but will really agravate the heck out of me if I am already suffering from an attack of cat exposure.

Just out of curiosity do you know of any good sites that get the data straight from the sources pre-spin? I am intersted in hard sciences of all sorts.

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by MagiK: Yeah I knew we were not arguing about the issue, but about the source. I don't get to see the scientists much (Im almost exclusively mixed in with a crowd of Sleep Scientists from NIH on a social footing) So all I hear about is the crap that gets pushed out to the media for propaganda. Truth be told, I think smoking is rather nasty since it makes me hyper-sensitive to my real allergies, the smoke itself doesnt seem to set me off, but will really agravate the heck out of me if I am already suffering from an attack of cat exposure. Just out of curiosity do you know of any good sites that get the data straight from the sources pre-spin? I am intersted in hard sciences of all sorts.

I couldn´t agree more MagiK. [img]smile.gif[/img] Every time I read a "scientific" article in the morning paper I tend to roll my eyes, then scream a little at the paper.

For scientific papers, the best site would be PubMed. It is an index of every medical/scientific publication published the last 20 years in every scientific magazine. This is true scientific material, if you are looking for reviews (publications witout the used methods etc) I strongly recommend Science or Nature. Both are extrmemly good!

Pubmed is located here: http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
Just a note to this link. I do not know if you are able to access the fulltext articles. I can, through work, access most of them. If you find something interesting let me know (my email is in my profile) and I´ll email you the full articles. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Thanks [img]smile.gif[/img] I feel like a kid at christmas time...I have a new place to search for info [img]smile.gif[/img]

Ps. about the evolution thread...check your PM's [img]smile.gif[/img]

[AzRaeL StoRmBlaDe]

I've seen previous shows and they are terribly funny, though I did unfortunately miss this weeks' installment. I can't stand for BS scare tactics either. I think it's completely ridiculous. I also think the whole idea of those organizations are completely retarded. I am not a smoker, but if you are and you don't know that smoking is bad for you by now,you have a grevious mental deficiency, and should check yourself into a clinic for the mentally handicapped as soon as possible.
on another note, what time is it on, and on what day. I'll have to try and catch the show.

[ 02-24-2003, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: AzRaeL StoRmBlaDe ]

I believe that the new episodes come out on Fridays at 11pm for the first run, thats when I have the TIVO set to record it.

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by WillowIX: I couldn´t agree more MagiK. [img]smile.gif[/img] Every time I read a "scientific" article in the morning paper I tend to roll my eyes, then scream a little at the paper.

Newspapers definitely tend to only say what they think people want to hear. One of my lecturers told us that she's often contacted by papers when they're running stories about the evils of daycare and why no child should be exposed to it. And she, based on robust findings, always says she isn't against daycare at all and the evidence is that daycare can even be beneficial, in the right circumstances. She's never quoted