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from the let-me-sell-you-some-snake-oil dept.
AlterNet reports
[...]the prestigious British Medical Journal has joined [The New Yorker, the US Senate, and the Twittersphere in condemning Mehmet Oz, MD for the pseudoscience on his TV show].
In an article published this week, a group of health experts analyzed a random sampling of episodes of "The Dr. Oz Show" (along with another syndicated show, "The Doctors"). The upshot: the evidence supports less than half of what he says. Which, in practical terms, means you should have reasonable doubt about all of it.
The researchers sat through 40 episodes of the "The Dr. Oz Show"; from those, they identified 479 separate recommendations he or his guests made to his TV audience. After winnowing the selection down to more forceful recommendations, they randomly selected 80 and weighed them against the existing medical literature, evaluating each claim for "consistency and believability."
Only 46 percent of the advice, they found, had evidence supporting it, and just 33 percent of the time were those claims supported by "believable or somewhat believable evidence." For just more than 1 in 3 recommendations, they weren't able to find any supporting information at all (despite, they note, "being quite liberal in the type and amount of evidence we required").
The sad part is how many people get their "information" from television.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:19AM
Can we use real words instead of "Twittersphere" and "blogosphere" and the like?
Now get off my paved and painted lawn!
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(Score: 4, Funny) by tibman on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:19AM
The Blogosphere exists on the western edge of the Sea of Opinions. Though Twitter is larger, it is singular and isn't a member of any sphere-like community. https://xkcd.com/802_large/ [xkcd.com]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:38AM
Can we use real words instead of "Twittersphere" and "blogosphere" and the like?
Can we use less descriptive terms so the summaries can be bloated and take longer to read?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday December 23 2014, @06:15AM
Twitter users would be more accurate since Twittersphere treats Twitter users like they are incapable of being influenced by other sites.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:02PM
What is a "real word"? The word "robotics" didn't exist until Isaac Asimov coined it, is that a "real" word?
I intensely dislike the incredibly stupid sounding "blog", "blogosphere", and "twitterverse" as well, but what are your suggestions for replacements?
Yeah, I'm a geezer, too.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday December 24 2014, @05:08AM
Call them bloggers or Twitter users. We have perfectly usable words already, Asimov did not.
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