Let's collate a counteridiocy video archive. This is an excellent start. Please try and stick to non-specific general No Nonsense video subjects and give a brief synopsis so we can find what we're looking for later.

Open-mindedness - Qualia Soup


In-thread video links (can also be viewed below) -

RDF TV - Baloney Detection Kit - Michael Shermer
QualiaSoup - The problem with anecdotes
QualiaSoup - It *could* just be coincidence
Here Be Dragons - The Movie
Some Grey Bloke - My ex-wife's a racist
QualiaSoup - Skewed views of science
TheraminTrees - Illusion of superiority, the Dunning–Kruger effect
Qualia Soup - Critical Thinking
Qualia Soup - Absolutely... not, morality and god
QualiaSoup - Flawed thinking by numbers, use and abuse of probability
Atheism and the Null Hypothesis

Tags: counteridiocy, video, youtube

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Technically a parody, only it's not really funny because it's methodology is really indistinguishable from that of cranks. Zeitgeist pisstake from Ericbrooksdotcom.

That was fun.
Another in the ongoing series of Special Investigations from NonStampCollector. This one is "Evolution".

That is extremely painful to watch.
'frozen justice' - awesome
Ben Goldacre on the Plecebo affect:

This brings up some interesting points. It's from UK but there are implications in the US.

- It's illegal and unethical for MDs and DOs to give sham treatments in the US. As it should be.
- Many people absolutely demand medications and treatments that are inappropriate, and strongly pressure their Dr. into giving these treatments. Classic example is antibiotic for "flu" or "cold". Antibiotics have absolutely no benefit for viral syndromes, and inappropriate use has risks and costs - can even be life threatening - anaphylaxis (rare, can be fatal), Stevens Johnson syndrome(rare, can be fatal), yeast infections (common) and colitis (common) to name a few. Even so, I would guess that the majority of antibiotics prescribed in the US are for viral syndromes. This does not mean that there are not times when antibiotic is given appropriately for a flu syndrome that in a specific case may be high risk for secondary infection, or bronchitis exacerbation in a high risk patient, but for the average healthy person, antibiotic for a cold is patient-demanded placebo, inappropriate, and probably given if the patient demands it. Some arthroscopic surgeries have similar sham effect.
- It's apparently not illegal for chiropractors, naturopaths, and alternative 'medicine' or 'holistic' providers to give sham treatments and remedies.
- The issue of a 'healing environment' is being increasingly addressed by health insurance companies, and the surveys they mail to patients. Also on-line like Angies List and other survey services. Increasingly, if a MD or DO gets recurrent survey results that say they are not friendly, timely, courteous, supportive, responsive, they may be fired from their jobs or terminated from their health insurance contracts. Some doctors now get "charm school training" from medical school, residency, and their places of employment, to address this issue. The downside is that people with an agenda (oxycodone, disability, other), personality disorder, or just plain sick a lot and therefore unhappy, can have undue impact. Plus, needing to address all needs in a responsive manner, run on time, and keep within the employer's time constraints, leads to many MDs saying screw it, they'd rather be in a specialty that isn't so demanding. I would still rather see an asshole who really knows their stuff, over an incompetent but nice person, but really would rather have a nice person who knows their stuff. That's just my 2¢, many would disagree.
-the concept of nocebo has equal power. Placebo is part of a continuum, from psychological benefit, to no effect, to psychological harm. Nocebo probably has more power in modern medicine, than placebo. Give someone a sugar pill and tell them it's an antibiotic, they may well think it helped cure their cold (but is illegal and inappropriate to do). Give a statin cholesterol pill, and tell them they may get muscle pains (should be part of informed consent), or a blood pressure pill and tell them they may lose their erections, or get dizzy, and they may have those symptoms even if they wouldn't have had otherwise. That's in a setting where both can happen, but who knows how many people have these effects due to the medication, and how many have them due to nocebo effect. Again, probably a continuum. So they go to the herbal remedy, and "feel like" their cholesterol or blood pressure or diabetes is controlled when in reality, the blood pressure and blood sugars are sky high and they are losing nerve endings and brain cells and will have a more miserable life due to their uncontrolled disease. It's complicated.
Atheism and the Null Hypothesis

A new one from NonStampCollector (2/22/10): Context!!!!!!

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