In 1998, The Journal of the American Medical Association published research that debunked therapeutic touch and moved the well-meaning mystical practice out of the kingdom of medicine and into the abandoned strip mall of quackery.
Category Archive: Podcasts
The Topic: The Future
The Guests: James Burke and Matt Novak
The Episode: Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Transcript
If you love educational entertainment – programs about science, nature, history, technology and everything in between – it is a safe bet that the creators of those shows were heavily influenced by the founding fathers of science communication: Carl Sagan, David Attenborough, and James Burke.
In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast we sit down with James Burke and discuss the past, the present, and where he sees us heading in the future. Burke says we must soon learn how to deal with a world in which scarcity is scarce, abundance is abundant, and home manufacturing can produce just about anything you desire.
The Topic: The Placebo Effect
The Guest: Kristi Erdal
The Episode: Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud
How powerful is the placebo effect? After a good night’s sleep could a scientist convince you that you had tossed and turned, and if so, how would that affect your perceptions and behavior? What if a doctor told you that you had slept like a baby when in reality you had barely slept at all? Would hearing those words improve your performance on a difficult test?
In this episode we learn the answers to these questions and more as we explore how research continues to unravel the mysteries behind the placebo effect and how it can drastically alter our bodies and minds.
The Topic: The Benjamin Franklin Effect
The Episode: Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud
Benjamin Franklin knew how to deal with haters, and in this episode we learn how he turned his haters into fans with what is now called The Benjamin Franklin Effect (read more about the effect here).
Listen as David McRaney reads an excerpt from his book, “You Are Now Less Dumb,” explaining the psychology behind the effect and how the act of spreading harm forms the attitude of hate, and the act of spreading kindness generates the attitude of camaraderie.
The Topic: Conspiracy Theories The Guest: Steven Novella and Jesse Walker The Episode: Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Transcript This episode of You Are Not […]
The Topic: Narrative Bias
The Episode: Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud
In this inbetweenisode I read an excerpt from my book, You Are Now Less Dumb, about a strange experiment in Michigan that tested the bounds of the self by throwing three very unusual men into a situation that won’t likely be repeated ever again by science.
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