Penn and Teller: Placebo Effect

I didn’t know where to leave this question or maybe I just didn’t feel like looking through this site (blog) to find a place. I read how you became who you are today as it relates to christianity. I think your site looks great and it apprears to be well written. It is very interesting. You probably get a lot of good traffic. Good job!

Now my question(s):
What is the propaganda about? What is the purpose of it? Who started it and how do they benefit from say…Joe the Plumber becoming a Christian and going to say…the little church down the street from his house?

For some reason, the idea of making people look foolish in public just because they are looking for something to ease their physical pain bothers me. It’s got an element of point-and-laugh that makes me uncomfortable.

Still, your larger point – people will do ridiculous things just because an authority figure tells them to – is spot on.

I can guarantee the snails on my face would have an extreme adverse effect on me, because I am snail- and slug-phobic. For that reason I had to stop watching at the 4.40 mark or so, to go and be sick.

In general I agree with your point though. Quackery is big business, and it’s not on – not just because it fraudulently separates people from their money, but because it also gives them false hope. In extreme cases, people who are promised cures from serious illnesses via toyist remedies give up their real treatments, such as vaccines, chemotherapy, etc. Such people sometimes go on to die, as indeed they would have done in the middle ages, without proper medicine.

I have to say though that I do not agree with everything Penn and Teller say: in some of their other programs their own logic and/or research is flawed. Believing P&T’s take “just because they say so” (and are entertaining) could be a mistake too.

That is absolutely unbelievable!
It amazes me what the power of persuasion can do to people’s minds. It’s no WONDER so many of them fall for the religion scam too.

btw, on a fun note, that was filmed at the mall right by my house (LOL).

Keep up the great work!
I love your blog.

Winx, Jinxi

Consumer exploitation at its finest. This is why we have such a screwed up economy. Too much disparity between the ignorant and people who search for truth.

Ok, i didn’t read this post or watch the video, this is a reply to your “about me” page, but you have comments disabled. So this is the only other place i knew to post.

You said that you don’t believe in angels or demons. Well, i’ve seen them. What’s your answer for that? I don’t do drugs or drink or take part in any other mind altering activity. Is your answer just that i’m a crazy person and don’t know what i really saw, or do you have a legit explanation?

True, Daniel’s anecdote is merely that, and I agree we should be wary of accepting anecdotal “evidence” as proof, in this and any matter. However, there is the evidence from scientific trials which does prove the link between passive smoking and cancer in never-smokers, albeit at a lower incidence than in smokers. Roy Castle, who never smoked but died in ’94 of lung cancer – of a kind only ever seen in smokers – is another anecdote, but I doubt anyone would dismiss him as irrelevant.

[See also Vineis P, Airoldi L, Veglia P, et al. Environmental tobacco smoke and risk of respiratory cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in former smokers and never smokers in the EPIC prospective study. British Medical Journal. 2005;330:277-287.]

Is there anything people won’t do just because someone in a white coat tells them to do it?

Maybe I should put my white coat on when I tell them not to blindly believe everybody in a white coat?

Okay, I wrote that before I finished watching, and if – as Penn implies – they did eventually let everyone in on the joke and they all had a good laugh, then that nullifies my previous comment.

Carry on.

I didn’t know they changed their minds about that — it’s good to hear. I know someone who died from lung cancer, not because she smoked, but because her father smoked in the house all the time and she lived with him. I was surprised they would take the position that the “second hand smoke is bad for you” argument is bullshit.

I agree with Spence-Bob that the larger point is about authority figures, not necessarily science or medicine. People might not put a snail on their face for a reverend, but they do plenty of other wacky stuff – in extreme case, allowing a pastor to tell them who to marry, where to live, and how many children to have (see Christian “shepherding” movement).

Point is those are outliers. In modern American society, most Christians, much less anyone else, wouldn’t handle a poisonous snake on orders from a reverend or priest. A great deal *more* would put a snail on their face to clear up wrinkles on the say-so of a biologist or doctor.

This seems like a non-sequitur, Daniel. The fact that your acquaintance died of lung cancer, and was exposed to second-hand smoke, is extremely weak evidence that second-hand smoke causes lung cancer.

Whether or not our observations end up supporting the correct answer restrospectively, we should be very very skeptical about the prospective importance of your own observations.

Wouldn’t people putting snails on their face for medical reasons be outliers too?

I’ve never seen demons (outside of nightmares) but I’ve seen and heard angels lots of times. (Not sure if the inverted commas should be around seen, heard or angels). These manifestations were at a time when I was extremely low and desperate for some help or intervention in my life. A friend told me we all have a guardian angel, and took me to an angels workshop, and got me to read a couple of books on angels. Then, hey presto, I started having angel visitations.

I’m convinced now that a) I was not mentally ill, just very low and with lots of problems; and b) the mind is a powerful thing and can convince you of anything if you give it a push in the right direction and/or if you want to believe enough.

Of course, whether angels exist or not cannot be proved either way – afaik.