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Reported on http://novysan.com/magic and confirmed here: http://www.media.mit.edu/about/academics/class-schedule
'When Aleister Crowley defined magic as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will,” he might as easily have been describing technology. In fact, “magic” is still the word we use to encompass the wonders of a new technology before it becomes ubiquitous. '
Course Description
"With a focus on the creation of functional prototypes and practicing real magical crafts, this class combines theatrical illusion, game design, sleight of hand, machine learning, camouflage, and neuroscience to explore how ideas from ancient magic and modern stage illusion can inform cutting edge technology. Students will learn techniques to improve the presentation, display, and interface of their projects as well as gaining a deeper understanding of the cultural traditions that shape user expectations of technology. Topics will include: Stage Illusion as Information Display, The Neuroscience of Misdirection, Magical Warfare: Camouflage and Deception, Magic Items and the Internet of Things, Computational Demonology, Ritual Magick as User Experience Design. Guest lecturers and representatives of Member companies will contribute to select project critiques. Requires regular reading, discussion, practicing magic tricks, design exercises, a midterm project and final project."
Uncle Al would have been so proud.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Friday February 06 2015, @02:49PM
I'm sorry, but herbology is not a fraud. If you think it is, go drink some hemlock juice: if herbology is a fraud, then nothing wrong will happen to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 06 2015, @02:56PM
I'm talking about the alternative medicine variety.
Don't bother giving me examples of folk knowledge. If it's not scientifically proven, then it needs to be tested for effectiveness or discarded.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday February 06 2015, @03:09PM
You mean the same type of tests like the ones behind the "sugar-good-fat-bad" [soylentnews.org]?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 06 2015, @03:15PM
omg the human body is complicated.
omg science got it wrong.
Scientific understand is supposed to change over time. It has a process in place to do that, called the scientific method. Alternative medicine doesn't have that. At best it operates at the "eat this, it doesn't kill you and you might get better" level of observation. Not a substitute for control groups and double blind studies
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday February 06 2015, @03:32PM
And what's wrong with that? I mean, look, I'm not expecting miracle healing from plants, but I won't dismiss the observation that "coffee causes diuresis" even if it wasn't subject of a double blind study. As I also know (and using it whenever I need) that peppermint leaves infusion (mint tea) will stop most cases of diarrhea, except the cases of dysentery - so what's wrong with that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 06 2015, @03:49PM
It's outdated and defunct. It needs to be put back in the ground.
The spread of alternative medicine and associated unscientific beliefs has led to:
a boom in loosely regulated and misleading herbal supplements [washingtonpost.com], worth billions to snake oil salesmen [wikipedia.org]
vaccine denialism [wikipedia.org] becoming a primary election issue [npr.org], weakening herd immunity, and spreading preventable illnesses [npr.org]
the death of a tech billionaire/cult leader [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 06 2015, @03:59PM
Yeeah, it's like heaps of fraudsters parting fools of their money caused mint tea to suddenly lose its effect, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday February 06 2015, @06:45PM
Yeah, you guys are all correct in my book. There's two different sides to herbs, the B.S. and the solid proven science.
I've got an entire cabinet in my kitchen full of nothing but herbal teas. I've got herbs for everything -- energy, sleep aids, stuff to focus, stuff to relax, stuff for acid reflux or upset stomach, stuff for general health...but I'm not getting this information off of Master Chang's Ancient Wisdom Website. I check WebMD, I check the Mayo Clinic, and I check Wikipedia. Often these do provide similar information though -- Wikipedia will say 'it has a lot of caffeine'; the traditional herbalist text might say 'it energizes your spirit'. That's pretty much the same fact in different words. I don't look at herbs in terms of chi and aura and all that garbage; I look at them in terms of compounds that expand or constrict blood vessels, or what vitamins and minerals they contain, or antihistamines or whatever.
Remember that this "ancient wisdom" crap was gathered through a very similar process to modern science. They didn't have the accuracy we do because they don't have the equipment we do. And they made plenty of mistakes. But ultimately they were creating a hypothesis, conducting an experiment, and recording the results. So it's not really surprising that they had many of the same observations we find today. And it's likely we would be making far more scientifically rigorous statements about these plants if it was possible to patent them...you can't really say it's wrong if it hasn't been studied; you can only say it's inconclusive.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Friday February 06 2015, @06:14PM
I won't dismiss the observation that "coffee causes diuresis" even if it wasn't subject of a double blind study.
That's an interesting example to choose, as that research has been done, and largely disproves the theory. Here's a quote from Medicinenet: [medicinenet.com]
Back in 1928, caffeine was shown to have no significant impact on urinary output. Subsequent studies have shown that caffeine-containing beverages did not impact urinary output any differently than other beverages. Based on this, the Institute of Medicine recommends that "unless additional evidence becomes available indicating cumulative total water deficits in individuals with habitual intakes of significant amounts of caffeine, caffeinated beverages appear to contribute to the daily total water intake similar to that contributed by noncaffeinated beverages."
tl;dr version: drinking an equal amount of water increases urination by the same amount as the coffee. That's not diuresis, that's just maintaining water balance.
There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of the true effects the herbs can have. In the immortal words of Josh Billings, however, "It ain't ignorance causes so much trouble; it's folks knowing so much that ain't so."
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday February 06 2015, @07:10PM
Interesting...I hadn't heard this and it doesn't match my own experience so I looked around a bit more...
The Mayo Clinic says you're right that it's not dehydrating -- but they say you're wrong about it not being a diuretic. I presume that would mean it does increases the immediate urge to urinate, but not the overall volume produced:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/caffeinated-drinks/faq-20057965 [mayoclinic.org]
It also seems that most people will very quickly develop a tolerance, and that the effect only occurs at doses slightly higher than one (small) cup of coffee. I'm a bit confused where they get 250-300mg as 2-3 cups of coffee here though -- I've always heard 8oz black coffee was 200mg, so that would be 1-1.5 cups...or a medium from your favorite coffeehouse. Either way though, at most it takes one "large coffee" to reach these effects:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19774754 [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 06 2015, @10:52PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 06 2015, @10:55PM
FWIW, coffee has a lot more in it than caffeine. It is also a diuretic, but it additionally contains a lot of water, so I wouldn't want to speculate on what the net effect was. Are you going to claim that beer isn't a diuretic because you don't quickly excrete as much liquid as you drink? I *would* speculate that chewing coffee beans would result in net loss of water..along with many other effects, some rather undesirable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Mr. Slippery on Friday February 06 2015, @04:33PM
And while we wait around for someone to have the motivation and resources to adequately test a given herbal remedy or other treatment that has been around long enough that we can at least recognize it as mostly safe while we still wonder about its effectiveness...what shall we do?
If you're going to insist on high quality placebo controlled studies before using a medical treatment, very few meet the bill. At the "gold standard", surgery is right out, all placebo ("sham surgery") controlled studies have found the procedure under study to be ineffective. I am not saying surgery is ineffective, I am commenting on the process of gathering and processing evidence, that if you judged it by the same standards that many so-called "skeptics" demand of CAM treatments it would fail.
Many drugs, once you eliminate cherry-picking by their makers, have little evidence of effectiveness.
Most medicine as it is actually practiced, is folklore in white coats.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 06 2015, @03:07PM
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 06 2015, @03:14PM
And exactly how this proves herbal medicine is a fraud?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 06 2015, @03:23PM
Wrong question.
Herbal/alternative/traditional/tribal/chinese/fake medicine doesn't try to explain how it works.
You managed to find some magic bark [wikipedia.org] that makes your headache go away. But you don't know about the side effects or long term effects.
Mixing your magic ingredients together can also cause bad magic:
Good luck figuring that out before modern medicine.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday February 06 2015, @03:47PM
Mate, look, I don't preach "forget modern medicine" - I only say that herbalism is not a fraud.
Regarding side effects and long term exposure, don't delude yourself in thinking modern medicine is immune [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Friday February 06 2015, @04:59PM
That's not true. Modern herbalists are actually expected to have some knowledge of chemistry, and they know perfectly well why the bark works.
The biggest problem with chinese medicine is precisely that it does try to explain why it works, and the theory is incompatible with modern western A&P. Acupuncture still works shockingly well, however, and this is why you now see folks coming up with different theories to underlay the same clinical practice - dry needling.
And when you think about shamanistic/animistic medicine you should understand that in many cases with western medicine the effect of the 'real' medicine is actually less than the placebos contribution. The placebo affect can be incredibly powerful, and the most important skill for getting the most out of it is drama - not medicine. Shamans are typically better actors than doctors are. If a shaman also has a few 'real' tricks, like knowing which herbs produce useful drugs, and the symptoms for a few common ailments along with simple treatments for them, the patients might well derive significant benefit from the treatments.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?