SGU Episode 414

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SGU Episode 414
22nd Jun 2013
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SGU 413                      SGU 415
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guest
DL: Daniel Loxton
Quote of the Week
Everybody has opinions: I have them, you have them. And we are all told from the moment we open our eyes, that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Well, that’s horsepuckey, of course. We are not entitled to our opinions; we are entitled to our informed opinions. Without research, without background, without understanding, it's nothing
Harlan Ellison
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Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, today is Wednesday, June 19^th, 2013, and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella,

B: Hey, everybody

S: Rebecca Watson,

R: Hello, everyone.

S: Jay Novella,

J: Hey, guys.

S: and Evan Bernstein.

E: Salutations, everybody

R: Hello...

S: Salutations and felicitations, Evan.

E: Oh, and felicitations, how could I forget the Squire of Gothos. Shame on me,

S: I don't know (chuckles)

E: shame on me.

R: The hell you guys talking about.

E: Well, Rebecca, aren't you watching the Star Trek series?

R: I guess I haven't gotten up to that point, yet.

E: This is the original series.

R: I'm watching The Next Generation.

S: You know what I saw recently? "Star Trek Continues".

E: Hm?

S: which is a a

J: Wha?

S: fan.. "Star Trek Continues", it's a fan episode, a fan video, where it's as if the ep... the seasons continued as if it wasn't canceled after three seasons. So it's not, it's not like a parody, and it's not an update or a reboot or anything it's like what would a fourth season have actually been like,

B: Oh, cool.

S: and and they do their best to reproduce, the production value, the sets are identical, all the sound effects, the music the acting

R: Hm

S: the whole culture that was definitely embedded in that late '60s you know in terms of everything. And the

?: (inaudible)

S: some of the actors are damn good, the guy who's doing Kirk has his mannerisms down, absolutely down.

B: And it's not a parody of his mannerisms?

S: No, no it's not, it's not a parody, it's an imitation. And it like things like it's like "Yeah, Kirk does do that!" You know, it's like, (laughter) you uh things you wouldn't even think of. Like the

R: That is so Kirk.

S: ways he moves his arms when he walks. Yeah, it's just amazing.

R: Hey, remember that Star Trek episode where, uh, poisonous gas covered most of the planet, and murdered millions of people?

E: Ahhh.

R: Oh, wait, no, that was real life. Oh, my God!

B: (laughter)

E: That's worse.

This Day in Skepticism (1:58)

R: On June 22, 1783, a poisonous cloud caused by the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland, uh, finally reached France. So this is kind of, um, I really could have picked any date, uh, it's very interesting, it's something that I didn't even realize was the thing, uh, it was one of the most deadly if not the most deadly volcanic eruptions in human history, as I said it happened in Iceland but it spread all over the globe, uh, first of all though in Iceland it killed about 50% of the livestock which lead to a famine which killed a quarter of the population of Iceland. Uh, so it was pretty immediate but then it also went on to possibly cause droughts in India and Africa which lead to millions of more deaths, uh, as well as crop failures in Europe and air pollution and this deadly gas... from this deadly gas. So, all to... all told, it killed probably over 6 million people

?: What?

R: globally. Yeah, 6 million.

E: That's a lot (inaudible)

R: It was a pretty big volcanic eruption.

E: 1783, that's (inaudible) quite a bit.

B: Holy crap.

R: And the cloud was sulfur dioxide that

E: Oh, that'll do it

R: and also the hydrogen... the hydrogen fluoride apparently I think killed most of the people in Iceland but the sulfur dioxide is what drifted into Europe to start murdering people there. But yeah and it also caused severe global temperature change, uh, it was the hottest summer on record followed by really violent winter with hail and storms and all that good stuff which probably lead to more deaths.

S: It was the longest period of below zero temperatures in New England.

R: Oh, yeah, the US... the US area just had some severe weather. They don't... I.. I didn't find a whole of talk about deaths that resulted in it but I think people were just dying left and right anyway, at that point, so

S: A bad winter in 1783 was no joke.

R: Exactly, yeah, that's... that's what I'm sayin'. But...

B: So this gas released it wasn't part of like a.. a pyroclastic flow, it was just this, just this gas that came out and went

S: Just a bubble of gas

B: all over the place

R: Yeah, like a volcanic fart, silent but deadly

E: Probably wasn't too silent, either

R: Too soon?

?: Too soon (laughter)

S: Volcanoes are no joke, that superheated gas that kills people it's not just the lava and the ash, I mean, it's usually the gas, even if it's not poisonous gas if it's superheated it's like your lungs explode, you know. Well, let's move on, uhm, have you guys heard...

?: (stage inhalation)

?: Uh?

News Items

Osteoarthritis (4:41)

• Science-based Medicine: Knee Osteoarthritis: Thumbs Down for Acupuncture and Glucosamine

S: the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons has released their, uh, 1200 page report evaluating evidence for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis

R: Now the last time you led us into one of these and we made all made light-hearted jokes about how boring the topic was, we got a bunch of angry letters from botanists, so, no, Steve, not gonna fall for it, this sounds fascinating, tell me more. (laughter)

S: Yeah, but like last time I convinced you how cool botany was, now I wanna convince you how cool osteoarthritis is.

E: Here come more letters (laughter)

S: Oh, boy. (laughter)

S: um, so osteoarthritis is, essentially degenerative arthritis of a joint, mainly from wear and tear, but there are other obviously biological factors involved, and so knee osteoarthritis, very common, um, as people get into their 40's and 50's they uh, their knees start to ache, you know, and they just wear out, they just don't really last 80 years unfortunately. There are lots of potential treatments for osteoarthritis including many that are not evidence-based. This report is interesting for a number of reasons, not just for the specific recommendations that are made. Harriet Hall writes about this on Science-based Medicine and I recommend that for those who are interested but I just want to highlight some of the interesting things. First of all, it shows that science-based practitioners actually care about evidence, despite all of the propaganda about "Oh, those doctors only want drugs and surgery" here we have a uh a major you know a professional organization in the United States dedicated to orthopedic surgery reviewing thousands of published studies, putting out a 1200 page comprehensive report looking in-depth into the evidence for many different approaches, and here are the highlights of what they found, where there was strong evidence you know for or against. So glucosamine chondroitin you guys are familiar with this, right, this is a dietary supplement that has been and still is promoted, um, has been for years, for arthritis. What do you think they found?

E: It doesn't work.

S: It doesn't work. So it was one of the few things where there was strong evidence against its effectiveness. Glucosamine and chondroitin doesn't work, there have been large studies. Exercise, strong evidence for, in favor of it. Weight loss, moderate evidence in favor of it. Acupuncture, what do you think they concluded?

R: No evidence.

?: Overwhelming evidence.

S: Strong evidence against its effectiveness. So very nice to see that they took a science-based approach to acupuncture research and didn't fall for the bait-and-switch of "Oh, it works like a placebo" you know, they didn't fall for that business. And also, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories strong evidence they are effective, that's not surprising. And here's one: arthroscopy with lavage and debridement --- strong evidence against.

B: Really?

E: Lavage, huh?

S: So lavage is like just washing it out. So arthroscopy is putting the scope into the knee and looking around, you know, for diagnostic, but if you take anything out then it becomes a therapeutic procedure, right, that's debridement, you know, cutting away any fraying pieces of cartilage and then washing out those pieces, that's the lavage part. So, this is a pretty lucrative, popular procedure for orthopedists to do. And here they are, the official organization of orthopedists, coming out with a statement saying there is strong evidence against the effectiveness of this procedure. This is something that we've written about on Science-based Medicine previously when there...there... when a review came out, I think now about two years ago, showing that arthroscopy was not effective, and there was some push-back from some orthopedists, and we said "Hey, this is the evidence, baby, this is, this is what it shows". So it's nice now to see the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons looking at the evidence and honestly saying "Yep, our beloved procedure, that we would love to have work, doesn't work". So it's hard in the face of this, if you look at the bigger picture, it's hard to justify the typical knee-jerk criticisms that alternative medicine proponents have against mainstream medicine

R: Heh, knee-jerk

S: Yeah, knee-jerk. That it's they only care about drugs and surgery, well here they are saying um, their favorite surgical procedure doesn't work, that they don't care about other things, here they're strongly in favor of exercise, moderately in favor of weight loss, Um, and that they're not, they don't care about actually treating people, well, this is, I think this shows their dedication to the evidence to what actually works regardless of what the modality is, and this is, this is, what we see in mainstream medicine all the time. This is a Herculean effort and it's great document, but this is what we see all the time, you know, the... academic professional uh physicians looking at the evidence objectively and the chips fall where they may, in its direct contradiction to all the anti-mainstream medicine conspiracy theories that you're going to hear from the alternative medicine side, so I thought that was worth pointing out. Also, Harriet pointed out something interesting, things like homeopathy didn't even make the list, it wasn't even worth their time to take a look at.

B: Oh, awesome.

E: Good.

S: Yeah.

R. Good (inaudible).

E: I don't know if we'd be able to say that if this were British Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, right? That probably would have made that list.

S: Homeopathy probably would have,

E: Yes

S: just because homeopathy is more popular across the pond, yeah.

B: Uh, Steve, did they mention why it wasn't on the list?

S: No, just... it didn't even... didn't even make the radar. Just wasn't even, yeah, not... not mentioned one way or the other.

B: OK

Quickie with Bob (10:27)

• ESO: New Kind of Variable Star Discovered

E: Oh, hey, wait, wait. I would like a Quickie with Bob right now.

B: Really?

E: Yes, right this moment.

B: Thank you, Evan, I'm almost certain you will not regret this.

E: (laughter)

B: This is your Quickie with Bob. Astronomers in Chile, guys, have discovered a new type of variable star it was pretty interesting story uh they did detailed observations of 3700 stars in this specific cluster over 7 years. Um, and showed that they found 36 of these stars had very minute changes in their brightness of about only about a tenth of a percent over an hour or as much as over 20 hours. And uh this is... this is big news in the community because variable stars are in... are incredibly common there's lots of different types of variable stars and it's always interesting to... to add another one to the group actually the list of uh of typ... of variable stars um the types themselves was much bigger than... than I remember them being but just to break it down real quick there's... there's two different main types of stars that are variable, there's the intrinsic and extrinsic and it's kind of obvious what they... what that means the intrinsic stars that are variable are variable because of that's just the way they are something about their internal dynamics makes them makes the light output variable whereas the extrinsic... the extrinsic stars... variable stars are variable only because you know say something might move in front of them or... or there might be some... something in the way that changes the light that reaches the Earth. So within these intrinsic stars there's... there's just a few categories there's the pulsating variables, there's the eruptives, and there's the cataclysmic or explosive variable stars. This new one that they found I think is pretty obvious that it's within the... the pulsating variable star category

S: Is there a throbbing category? (laughter)

E: Is there a grooving category?

B: So like I said these variables are most certainly they'll be within the pulsating variety they haven't actually named this type of variable yet but I'm sure it's gonna be within that... that category They're not sure why they pulsate, either, basically because current models say that they should not be variable so this is the real surprise that these... that these varied so much and but one clue that they found is that many of these variables rotate very very fast

S: Yeah, that seems pretty telling

B: Yeah, more than 50% of their critical velocity, in fact, and the critical velocity

E: Wow

B: is a velocity that if they... if they reached 100% they would actually start throwing off mass so they're spinning very very fast and uh this spinning might... may have an effect on the dynamics of their interiors which then would result in the variability of the light output. So, uh, so keep an eye on it, I'm curious to see what they're gonna call it and uh, and... and you know what more they can determine, um, about these types of stars based on uh, on... on this... these studies that they're... these very detailed studies that they're doing. So, uh, so I got guys this has been your Quickie with Bob, I hope it was good for you, too.

News items continued

Patenting DNA (13:07)

• BBC News: US Supreme Court says human DNA cannot be patented

S: Thanks, Bob. OK, Rebecca, you're gonna tell us about a major Supreme Court case regarding patenting genes.

R: Yes, you are correct, Steve. There is a huge decision that just happened in the Supreme Court on, uh, June 13th, the Supreme Court ruled that, uh, companies, particularly Myriad Genetics, in this case, cannot patent a human gene. So in this specific case, it was this company Myriad Genetics which was one of the patent holders on the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes. Now, astute listeners might recall that we were recently talking about these very genes, in the case of Angelina Jolie,

S: Yeah.

R: who came out and said that she had the mutation in her BRCA gene that said she was much much much more likely to get breast cancer and ovarian cancer and so she had her breast removed. Now, we also mentioned that Angelina Jolie had spoken briefly about the fact that not everyone has access to the genetic testing required to find out if you have the mutation, in order to get the life saving operations you would need. Well, the reason why many people don't have access to this genetic testing is because Myriad Genetics was one of the patent holders and... and they were the only company that was allowed to perform this testing on these genes. So, if you wanted to find if you had the mutation you had to go through Myriad Genetics and that increases the price dramatically so they could charge thousands of dollars to people who wanted the testing. What this ruling means in this specific case it's a huge win for women particularly because this means that you... women can go get genetic testing anywhere to find out if they have this mutation they don't have to go through Myriad in order to find out, so, now you have companies competing against each other, prices go down, etc., etc., and more lives are saved because of it, so that's one result of this and one of the reasons why women's rights groups were a huge part of the uh lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court decision it was a unanimous decision the case was led by uh the ACLU um representing women's rights groups as well as scientists and other interest groups but also scientists win from this case because it means that uh any scientist can now pursue research on the... these genes where prior to this only Myriad and the other patent holders would technically be able to do that. Basically the court ruled that you can't patent a human gene however they did leave it open that you could possibly patent a gene that had been fiddled with.

?: Yeah.

R: So uh if you

?: (inaudible) huge

R: come up with your own gene, like a synthetic gene like cDNA... c... cDNA, that could still be eligible for a patent. Uh, but because Myriad the company did not actually create anything, they just researched the gene they're not allowed to patent it.

S: Yeah. So

R: So

S: products of nature cannot be patented and what this decision was exploring specifically was how much modification is necessary before a product of nature is an innovation. An... yeah, this that needed to be explored for the in... for this specific case of genes. And it seems that everyone pos... with the possible exception of Myriad, is happy about this decision this is a... I've seen nothing but universal praise for this decision.

E: Myriad shouldn't be too sad their stock rose that day

S: Is that right? (laughter)

E: as a result, yeah.

R: They have been fighting this

E: That will fade.

R: for a very long time so this is a huge loss for them, but it's... it is a great gain for humanity, we're

S: Yeah, for humanity.

R: literally talking about lives being saved

E: Yeah, absolutely.

R: and more research being done.

B: Yeah, it does seem...

R: So it is a good thing.

B: it does seem (inaudible) to me lots of benefits but what about the idea, the one negative thing that I've heard, that I've seen in a couple of places was that some people are afraid that companies like Myriad, of course, will scale back investment because they're not gonna be rewarded ah with patents for this so I just wonder how much of a genuine concern that aspect of this is.

R: Consider how much research is done by private companies compared to the huge amount of research that's currently being done through government institutions and universities. Private companies have always focussed on what's going to make the most money and that's why we have uh government funding for scientific endeavors. There's one other thing I wanted to mention, a bit of, uh, myth-busting. This... this thing was going around that... uh, Scalia doesn't believe in genetics, or in molecular biology. So, uh, it was a unanimous decision but Justice Scalia wrote a separate thing... ruling...

S: Separate opinion.

R: opinion, thank you, that's the word.

E: Opinion, yeah.

R: Uh, Scalia wrote a separate opinion uh saying that he, uh, agrees to vote with the majority, but he does not agree with one part of the opinion that has no effect on his final vote. What he said was, um, that he wouldn't sign on to Part 1a and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology because he can't affirm those details on his own knowledge or his own belief. So, Part 1a, deal... it's just a list of basic facts about DNA, about genetics, uh it's all kind of just basic level genetic stuff.

E: So was he basically saying I don't know what this is?

R: Yeah, you know, so some...

E: and therefore I can't really

R: some people were

E: say anything about it.

R: taking uh that he wouldn't affirm those details on his own knowledge or his own belief to mean that he didn't believe in genetics or he didn't know about genetics and so he didn't believe them, something like that. But, I've heard from lawyers who have said that this is a bit of legal-speak in a way, that there's this sort of ongoing argument on whether or not they should in... judges should include basic information that's not necessary to the final ruling, and so that's kind of what he was saying, is that this chunk I'm not a scientist, I'm not going to sign my name on this and say that as a Justice I approve of this because I have no idea I'm not a scientist and it has nothing to do with the case.

S: He's being a legal stickler,

R: Yes.

S: not a science denier.

R: Exactly.

B: Oh, OK.

R: That...

E: Right.

R: that's what I'm hearing from... from lawyers, and

S: That makes sense.

R: it makes sense to me.

S: And that's kind of his shtick, too,

R: Yeah.

S: is to be a legal stickler.

B?: Hmmm, OK.

Foot Fungus (20:02)

• Science News: Foot fungi a thriving, diverse community

Chinese Fake Alien ()

• The Telegraph: Chinese farmer jailed for making a rubber alien

Questions and Emails ()

Can We Know Everything? ()

I have been listening to the show for 4 years and although I have always been a sceptic I have learnt a great deal from your show. I would like to hear the rogues view on whether science has the potential to explain the physical world in such a way that we understand everything. Is there a limit to what we can comprehend? For example a dog has no concept of quantum gravity and wouldn’t ask the question of himself “Is space-time fundamentally continuous or discrete?” We have gone from asking ourselves how to grow food to “why is there far more matter than antimatter in the observable universe?” Our brain appears finite in capacity so I would assume that would limit our ability to understand the world around us. Reaching a limit at some stage seems inevitable. Or will our brains develop as we need to solve increasingly more difficult questions, after all our brains appear not to need to store every bit of information we discover perhaps more the ability to solve a problem, and the capacity to grasp the variables at that time. I could be wrong though. Your opinions would be greatly appreciated and interesting.

Mark Dennehy

Melbourne

Interview with Daniel Loxton ()

About his new book: Abominable Science

Science or Fiction ()

Item #1: New fossil evidence reveals the presence of kangaroo ancestors 25 million years ago in what is now Europe. Item #2: Researchers find that male guppies can reproduce up to 10 months after they have died. Item #3: Scientists have discovered a material that gets larger under pressure, in apparent defiance of the laws of physics.

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

Everybody has opinions: I have them, you have them. And we are all told from the moment we open our eyes, that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Well, that’s horsepuckey, of course. We are not entitled to our opinions; we are entitled to our informed opinions. Without research, without background, without understanding, it's nothing.

Harlan Ellison

Announcements ()

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information on this and other episodes, please visit our website at theskepticsguide.org, where you will find the show notes as well as links to our blogs, videos, online forum, and other content. You can send us feedback or questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. Also, please consider supporting the SGU by visiting the store page on our website, where you will find merchandise, premium content, and subscription information. Our listeners are what make SGU possible.

References