The Rational View podcast with Dr. Al Scott

Dr. Edzard Ernst debunks detox diets

In this episode I continue my investigation into the science of nutrition and food. Today I’m interviewing a physician who has been focusing on a critical evaluation of so-called alternative medicine or SCAM. I want to investigate with him the science behind various detox diets and claims made by nutrition specialists. I expect to receive a very skeptical viewpoint based on his many blog posts suggesting that claims of detoxing are a scam.
Edzard Ernst studied psychology and medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. In 1977, he qualified as a physician and completed his MD and PhD theses. He was Professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) at Hannover Medical School and Head of the PMR Department at the University of Vienna (Austria). He established the world’s first Chair in complementary medicine at Exeter University in 1993. Since 2012, he is Emeritus Professor at the University of Exeter and now lives in Cambridge, UK as well as in Brittany, France.
Professor Ernst is/was founder/Editor-in-Chief of three medical journals and has been a columnist for many publications. His work has been awarded 17 scientific awards and two Visiting Professorships. He served on the ‘Medicines Commission’ of the British ‘Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency’.
During the last 25 years, Prof Ernst’s research focused on the critical evaluation of most aspects of so-called alternative medicine or SCAM.
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Professor Matthew Neidell says the precautionary principle is poor public policy

In this episode I’d like to explore the impacts of the precautionary principle in public policy.  Many people think that the precautionary principle is the safest way forward. We shouldn’t use a tool until we’re sure that it won’t harm us. This just makes sense, doesn’t it? The application of the precautionary principle in European energy policy, for example, has lead to the shut down of Germany’s nuclear fleet, strong labelling laws for GMO products, and many other decisions of which I am not yet aware. Today I’ll be interviewing an economist who has a unique interdisciplinary perspective on the environment, health, and labor economics to get an expert opinion on this topic. I came across his insightful work as references in a Freakonomics podcast episode titled, “nuclear energy isn't perfect. Is it good enough?’.
Matthew Neidell is an economics professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.  He is also a faculty member with the Earth Institute and the Columbia Population Research Center. Neidell received his PhD in economics from UCLA and has performed policy work for various organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Institute of Medicine, Rockefeller Foundation, and World BankHe specializes in environmental, health, and labor economics, applying the latest empirical methods to examine the relationship between the environment and a wide range of measures of well-being, including worker productivity and human capital, and how human behavior affects these relationships.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #precautionaryprinciple #nuclearpower #publicpolicy #environment #energytransition #greenenergy #atomicenergy

The politics of food with Dr. Marion Nestle

In this episode I’m starting my series of interviews on the science of nutrition at the top with an interview with a leading authority on the politics of food and nutrition, Dr. Marion Nestle. In 2011 author Michael Pollan ranked her as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama), and American food journalist Mark Bittman ranked her #1 in his list of foodies to be thankful for. 
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley. Previous faculty positions were at Brandeis University and the UCSF School of Medicine. She was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. Her research and writing examine scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice and its consequences, emphasizing the role of food industry marketing. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of fifteen books focusing on the politics and science of food. Her most recent book is a memoir, Slow Cooked: An Unexpected Life in Food Politics (2022). She has won numerous awards for her public outreach, and has been recognized as one of the most influential foodies in America. The University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley named her as Public Health Hero.
My apologies for the sound quality in this one.
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Intro to the science behind nutrition

In this episode I’m hoping to start a new investigation into the science behind nutrition and food science. Many of us have heard the messages from our doctors that we need to cut back on our high sodium diets and we need to avoid fat and red meat to prevent heart disease. We’ve been told that sugar is bad for us. Processed foods are bad for us. Alcohol is bad for us. We need to eat more fruit and vegetables. We need to eat more fiber.
Western society is now in the midst of an obesity epidemic. Are we getting good nutritional advice? What does the science say?
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A psychedelic trip into the mind with Dr. Anil Seth

In this episode I return to the hard problem of consciousness with a distinguished neuroscientist, Dr. Anil Seth.  In the finest traditions of science, Dr. Seth is willing to test his ground-breaking theories of mind on himself by exploring the impacts of psychedelic drugs on the conscious experience. 
Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than twenty years. His mission is to advance the science of consciousness, and to use its insights for the benefits of society, technology, and medicine. He is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program on Brain, Mind and Consciousness, and Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Neuroscience of Consciousness. His two TED talks have been viewed more than thirteen million times, he has appeared in several films, and he is lead scientist on the Dreamachine project. His new book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness was an instant Sunday Times Bestseller and a 2021 Book of the Year.
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Is nuclear energy good for the climate?

In this episode I talk about how nuclear energy is being framed in Germany, the environmental laggard currently mining lignite coal for heat. I review some of the blatant anti-nuclear rhetoric being broadcast internationally and expose the flaws in the arguments.
On social media I have been heavily critical of Germany’s Energiewende. This is their national program to shut down their clean nuclear fleet and attempt to replace it with hundreds of billions of euros worth of variable wind and solar generating equipment. As a result of this ideologically driven strategy the country has been unable to keep the lights on without burning vast amounts of heavily polluting lignite coal, and bankrolling Putin's invasion of the Ukraine by buying up all available Russian natural gas. The death toll associated with anti-nuclear ideology is the true danger society should be talking about.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #energiewende #cleanenergy #greenenergy #nuclearenergy #atomicenergy #renewableenergy #sustainable #energytransition

Why we need a Rational View

In this episode I am bringing you my 2022 Rational View year in review, followed by a cool Pecha Kucha presentation that I made last year to a group of football alumni, put on by my public school friend Andy Vasily host of the Run Your Life podcast. The presentation is called ‘Why we need a Rational View’, and it defines much of what I have learned about communicating science, and the need for a rational discussion in a polarized world. Pecha Kucha is, I believe, a Japanese term meaning chit-chat.  The format is unique as it includes a timed slide presentation that you need to present alongside with a strict 20 second clock on each slide. So if you like it, I urge you to watch The Rational View Youtube channel for this presentation. 
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Alexander Wong on the new AI ChatGPT

Dr. Alexander Wong rejoins the Rational View to review the new and exciting advance in Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT. 
ChatGPT is a variant of GPT-3 (Generative Pretrained Transformer 3) that is specifically designed to be used in chat applications. It is a large language model that has been trained on a huge amount of text data in order to generate human-like responses to various types of inputs. Some key features of ChatGPT include its ability to generate responses in a conversational style, understand context, and continue a conversation based on previous exchanges. It is commonly used in chatbots, virtual assistants, and other applications where it is important to generate human-like responses in real time.
Professor Wong is currently the Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Medical Imaging, Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, Director of the Vision and Image Processing Research Group, and a Professor in the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo.
Together we assess the impact of this amazing new AI release, and question what it means for the future.
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Consuming rationally with Dr. Marko Kovic

In this episode I’m continuing to provide a free public service to educate the world about cognitive bias. You’re welcome. Today we’ll be exploring how the multi-billion dollar global marketing industry is implicitly given moral licence to exploit our cognitive biases, and how to prevent falling victim to this ethically questionable practice.
Marko Kovic, PhD, has a background in political science and communication science. He's a lecturer, researcher, author and activist in the areas of decision-making, cyberpsychology, misinformation and conspiracy theories.
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Rationality requires managing your cognitive biases

In this episode I describe several cognitive biases that we commonly fall victim to. Can you identify any of these from your own experiences?
If you have been following the controversy over social media you are aware of the problems with confirmation bias that leads us to believe dodgy sources when they agree with our preconceived opinions, but to hold other opinions to a much higher standard of evidence.  In this episode I’m going to explore a few lesser-known types of cognitive bias that could be impacting your judgement.  If you had a chance to listen to my interview with Nobel Laureate Dr. Daniel Kahneman you would understand that our brains do not naturally follow the formal laws of logic and inference.  We use several shortcuts that work well for us in everyday life. In a more recent interview, happiness guru Valerie Alexander pointed out that we need to shine a light on these biases to recognize their impacts on our mental processes and to address them.  Here is my crash course on how to recognize a few more insidious biases and eliminate them in our quest for the ultimate Vulcan rationality.
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