Be Excellent To Each Other

I suddenly realised last night that I've never seen Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, despite it being my sort of thing. So I downloaded some, seen the first couple so far. It is very good. The one about alternative medicine - and particularly the subluxation clips.

Would anybody like to have a conversation about it? It's very good.

I like their show, but have not seen enough for me to sustain a conversation on it. Did they do one about circumcision? I seem to recall they might have, and it's something I find baffling and horrible, so props to 'em.

I like it a lot, the first series more than the later ones (largely because they burned through most of the really good subjects fairly early).

The one on contacting the dead makes my blood boil every time I see it.

Similarly good TV for rational and reasonable people - Mythbusters. Two likable blokes do very silly things in a (generally) methodical and scientific fashion to investigate how plausible various urban legends and other bits of received wisdom are. It's like Brainiac for non-idiots.

Aye, it's a very, very, very good show. And obviously very much in tune with my thoughts and beliefs. They did do one on circumcision - it was pretty gross.

Interestingly since then there has been evidence that you are less likely to get aids if you are cut. But thats probably due to your 'head' hardening (and in turn losing lots of sensitivity).

Indeed. Hardly a fantastic argument compared to other birth control methods available in first world countries though.

Remember, though, they have a libertarian political agenda which sometimes gets in the way of the facts. The show on second-hand smoke was, in a word, bullshit...

Why, what did they say?

Passive smoking was no real danger, and it should be up to the business owner whether smoking is allowed on premises such as bars and clubs. I believe they apologised for getting their facts wrong some time later.

ETA: critique here, and a mea culpa from Penn Gillette himself here.

Very, very true.

But he did admit he was wrong. And when people do that it gets the scientist in me to love them all the more.

I really like it - it's at it's best when it's tackling less obvious stuff, such as the episodes on recycling, and why Mother Teresa was a cunt.

Just started watching this now (on youtube. Sorry! It's all I can afford, gents). It's very well done, and manages to be amusing and rather passionate without being so slanted as to be worthless (though there is a slant, I get the impression the 'starting with a conclusion' thing is just for show - they are showmen, after all) . That circumcision one was even more horrible than I'd expected. Americans are kerrazy.

And is it just me, or was it blatantly obvious that the couple arguing about whether or not to circumcise their son would end up doing it because the man was totally whipped? She had no coherent arguments at all, while he simply failed to follow his experiences to any kind of conclusion, and neither of them appeared to actually bother researching or discussing the subject, and instead just whined at each other about how hard it was.