Episode #165

[Steven Novella]

Podcast #165 9/17/2008
Interview with Ben Goldacre
News Items: Goldacre LIbel Victory, Stellar Mystery, Creationism in the UK
Your Questions and E-mails: Pharma Conspiracy
Name That Logical Fallacy
Randi Speaks: The Media
Science or Fiction

[Zeno Izen]

http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3

[Aidan]

Was there a secret word, and was it 'hot-pocket'?

[Evil Eye]

Is it just me? ...or did "Melvin" sound an awful lot like "Ex-Spiritual"?

[Wolf514]

So  much good science!

Suggestion: along with "Skepticism 101", another 101 series on basic science topics which are often in the news, like astrophysics and particle physics?
(Or would that be 301 then?)

[kem]

Gee, Ben Goldacre got a much better reception from the rogues with regards to science as feature rather than news than he did with the scientists/science writers ( Marcus Chown and James Randerson) on Science Weekly.  Those boys took him to task.  It was a very interesting discussion.

nice to hear such a good interview on SGU.

[marcparis]

I seem to recall seeing a guy who looked exactly like Melvin slitting the throat of Chandra Levy. Do any of you recall seeing that? I do hope that he won't dare call into question eyewitness testimony at his murder trial. How can he know what we saw? Is he God or something?

[maydont]

They missed False Premise....didn't Melvin say "You are not the God who created this world".

[Niobe]

Sweet lord does Goldacre have a sexy accent.

[Jayhox]

Proposal

New SGU term:   Melvin, as in n. to be a Melvin or v. to Melvin.

Example:

No, Bigfoot did not shoot JFK from the grassy knoll, you Melvin.

or

My chiropractor Melvined me yesterday and said his homeopathic elixir would cure my fibromyalgia.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Proposal

New SGU term:   Melvin, as in n. to be a Melvin or v. to Melvin.

Example:

No, Bigfoot did not shoot JFK from the grassy knoll, you Melvin.

or

My chiropractor Melvined me yesterday and said his homeopathic elixir would cure my fibromyalgia.

Give Melvin a chance; I thought the goal of SGU was to educate, not to ridicule.

If Melvin refuses to start thinking more critically after numerous conversations, then perhaps using his name generically or believers would be appropriate.

[Shivierie]

I can't wait to read the email. If you're going to send hate mail, you want to seem like you know what you're doing and/or what you're talking about. That was just silly.

[DK]

Has Melvin's email been posted anywhere? I thought Steve was going to link to it, so we can admire the logical fallacies and poor grammer.

That way we can compare it to Exspirituals prose.

[David E.]

Well that bit of hate mail was not at the Dawkins level, but still damn amusing.   It will be interesting if Melvin writes Jay back. 

[Karyn]

Sweet lord does Goldacre have a sexy accent.

You should have seen him talk at TAM.  yummy.