Penn & Teller

From RationalWiki
(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
(Second-hand smoke)
Line 18: Line 18:
 
Some episodes of the show feature individuals from the [[Cato Institute]], a libertarian think tank, to argue Penn and Teller's position. Penn and Teller are both fellows at the Institute but the potential conflict of interest is never mentioned.
 
Some episodes of the show feature individuals from the [[Cato Institute]], a libertarian think tank, to argue Penn and Teller's position. Penn and Teller are both fellows at the Institute but the potential conflict of interest is never mentioned.
  
Penn is best known for his humorously rude [[ad hominem]] attacks against people who support the position being questioned by the show. The format of ''Bullshit!'' is such that individuals on both sides of an issue are interviewed by themselves, not in a debate format, allowing Jillette to take potshots at them (through post-production narration) without their knowledge. Jillette has explained this is a comedy tactic (also intended to cast him as the polar opposite of Teller, who never speaks) and that he does not really support insulting a person if you debate them, and it also forms part of their apparent defence against libel as it's fine to insult people quite dramatically, but you can't call them [[charlatan]]s.  
+
Penn is best known for his humorously rude [[ad hominem]] attacks against people who support the position being questioned by the show. The format of ''Bullshit!'' is such that individuals on both sides of an issue are interviewed by themselves, not in a debate format, allowing Jillette to take potshots at them (through post-production narration) without their knowledge. Jillette has explained this is a comedy tactic (also intended to cast him as the polar opposite of Teller, who never speaks) and that he does not really support insulting a person if you debate them, and it also forms part of their apparent defence against libel as it's fine to insult people quite dramatically, but you can't call them [[charlatan]]s.
 +
 
 +
===Gun control===
 +
One of the "experts" presented in the "[[Gun Control]]" episode is John Lott, who has conducted (and [[PIDOOMA|fabricated]]) some highly questionable "research."<ref>See [http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/lott/ Tim Lambert's debunking of ''More Guns, Less Crime''.]</ref>
  
 
===Anti-environmentalism===
 
===Anti-environmentalism===
Line 28: Line 31:
 
====Second-hand smoke====
 
====Second-hand smoke====
 
In the episode "Second-hand Smoke/Baby Bullshit," P&T rely on another Cato "expert" (detecting a pattern here?) to declare that second-hand smoke is harmless. Their main objection is to a 1993 EPA report, which they say shows no [[statistical significance|statistically significant]] risks but claims that there are anyway. This claim relies on a technicality surrounding the cut-off for significant p-values -- although 0.05 is the most common number used, different kinds of studies and experiments may use a different significance level. Epidemiological studies sometimes use 0.1, and the results were significant at this level. In addition to this, the critics of the report falsely claim that a risk ratio of 2 or 3 is generally considered significant, but it's actually 1.1-1.3<ref>[http://www.skepdic.com/news/newsletter61.html#4 Mea culpa: Secondhand smoke and the politics of science], [[The Skeptic's Dictionary]] newsletter</ref> P&T later issued a correction when pressed on this.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognCoYA1_FY Penn and Teller Second-Hand Smoke Correction]</ref>
 
In the episode "Second-hand Smoke/Baby Bullshit," P&T rely on another Cato "expert" (detecting a pattern here?) to declare that second-hand smoke is harmless. Their main objection is to a 1993 EPA report, which they say shows no [[statistical significance|statistically significant]] risks but claims that there are anyway. This claim relies on a technicality surrounding the cut-off for significant p-values -- although 0.05 is the most common number used, different kinds of studies and experiments may use a different significance level. Epidemiological studies sometimes use 0.1, and the results were significant at this level. In addition to this, the critics of the report falsely claim that a risk ratio of 2 or 3 is generally considered significant, but it's actually 1.1-1.3<ref>[http://www.skepdic.com/news/newsletter61.html#4 Mea culpa: Secondhand smoke and the politics of science], [[The Skeptic's Dictionary]] newsletter</ref> P&T later issued a correction when pressed on this.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognCoYA1_FY Penn and Teller Second-Hand Smoke Correction]</ref>
 +
 +
====Recycling====
 +
The "Recycling" episode also contains some misleading information. In fairness, they do point out that recycling aluminum is justified and there is some bullshit surrounding recycling, but they misrepresent some cost-benefit analysis numbers and seem to imply that recycling paper pollutes more than creating new paper.<ref>[http://www.de-fact-o.com/fact_read.php?id=62 Recycling paper pollutes more than making new paper], De-Fact-O</ref><ref>[http://waste360.com/mag/waste_bullshit Bullshit!], Waste360</ref>
 
<!--
 
<!--
 
==Start all over again==
 
==Start all over again==

Revision as of 21:45, 13 October 2011

Note: Don't link to "Penn & Teller"! MediaWiki forbids certain characters from article titles, and "&" is one of them. This is because characters like "&" and "=" tell the software to do things, as opposed to loading articles. Please link to "Penn and Teller" instead.

Penn Jillette and Teller are a professional team of magicians who, in the vein of James Randi, have become debunkers of various irrational concepts. Outside of their longtime Las Vegas stage show, they are best known for their Showtime series Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, in which they investigate and debunk topics of interest. The show began in 2003 and concluded its eighth season in 2010, ending too abruptly for them to do the promised "Bullshit of Bullshit" finale. Their new ongoing show, "Tell a Lie," does not appear to be based on skepticism.

For the uninitiated, Penn is "the big one with the long hair who talks," and Teller is "the short one who doesn't talk," although there do exist videos of Teller speaking if you are willing to plumb the depths of YouTube.

Penn and Teller are controversial figures in the skeptic community because of their libertarian political views. A good rule of thumb to use may be that their episodes and discussions on religion, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories are great, but that your mileage may vary on episodes dealing with politics and economics.

Contents

The good stuff

Several episodes of Bullshit! have become classics. One episode that ripped the Catholic Church and the Pope a new hole (not the Goatsie this time) ended up being so controversial that it was not included on that season's DVD set and is never rerun. However, why the episode was "disappeared" has never been explained.[1] Other episodes dealing with topics of interest to rational skeptics include debunkings of creationism and intelligent design, the Bible as a source of historical accuracy and morals, New Age crap, homeopathy, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and Moon landing conspiracy theories. Another popular episode deals with the myth of video game violence.

Aside from religion, pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, politics, and economics, some episodes of Bullshit! deal with societal trends, like bottled water or stress. The veracity of these episodes varies.

Bullshit on Bullshit!

The pair have been criticized for using appeals to emotion, especially on topics related to libertarianism. For example, in an episode about the Endangered Species Act, the show uses a highly disabled woman in a wheelchair who cannot build her dream house on a specific lot because it is also a habitat for an endangered bird as an argument against the Act. Whatever valid criticisms they may have of a subject are sometimes obscured by over-reliance on shock and emotion instead of logic and facts. However, Penn and Teller at least have the dignity to openly admit both their usage of emotional appeals and their bias.

Some episodes of the show feature individuals from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, to argue Penn and Teller's position. Penn and Teller are both fellows at the Institute but the potential conflict of interest is never mentioned.

Penn is best known for his humorously rude ad hominem attacks against people who support the position being questioned by the show. The format of Bullshit! is such that individuals on both sides of an issue are interviewed by themselves, not in a debate format, allowing Jillette to take potshots at them (through post-production narration) without their knowledge. Jillette has explained this is a comedy tactic (also intended to cast him as the polar opposite of Teller, who never speaks) and that he does not really support insulting a person if you debate them, and it also forms part of their apparent defence against libel as it's fine to insult people quite dramatically, but you can't call them charlatans.

Gun control

One of the "experts" presented in the "Gun Control" episode is John Lott, who has conducted (and fabricated) some highly questionable "research."[2]

Anti-environmentalism

Bullshit! tends to run into the most trouble whenever it wades into environmental issues, as the duo tends to take an anti-environmental stance, either by explicit denialism or implicitly by cherry-picking actual bullshit surrounding environmental issues and the gullible hippies who buy into it while failing to mention that the actual science itself is not bullshit.

Global warming

Perhaps their most controversial opinion is that they were originally global warming denialists. Penn originally claimed that there was not enough evidence to make a decision, saying "we don't know." In the episode "Environmental Hysteria" in the first season of BS!, the pair present Bjorn Lomborg as an "expert" to "debunk" environmental hysteria, but neglect to mention the fact that his work has been excoriated by actual scientists and not just eco-nuts. Jerry Taylor of Cato is also trotted out to repeat some PRATTs like the mythical "global cooling" consensus of the 1970s and make up some figures about warming trends to conclude that future warming will be less than one degree Celsius.[3] A later episode, "Being Green," recycles some of their earlier bullshit, and adds in criticism of carbon offsets (which are often, but not always, bullshit), commits the Argumentum ad Gorem, and pulls off the classic dihydrogen monoxide hoax.[4] The general "expert interview" format for these episodes consists of hippies vs. think tank hacks -- the fact that scientists are ignored should set off your own bullshit detector. However, in 2008, Penn stated in an interview that anthropogenic global warming is real and that his reluctance to "come out" was due to the political climate surrounding the issue.[5]

Second-hand smoke

In the episode "Second-hand Smoke/Baby Bullshit," P&T rely on another Cato "expert" (detecting a pattern here?) to declare that second-hand smoke is harmless. Their main objection is to a 1993 EPA report, which they say shows no statistically significant risks but claims that there are anyway. This claim relies on a technicality surrounding the cut-off for significant p-values -- although 0.05 is the most common number used, different kinds of studies and experiments may use a different significance level. Epidemiological studies sometimes use 0.1, and the results were significant at this level. In addition to this, the critics of the report falsely claim that a risk ratio of 2 or 3 is generally considered significant, but it's actually 1.1-1.3[6] P&T later issued a correction when pressed on this.[7]

Recycling

The "Recycling" episode also contains some misleading information. In fairness, they do point out that recycling aluminum is justified and there is some bullshit surrounding recycling, but they misrepresent some cost-benefit analysis numbers and seem to imply that recycling paper pollutes more than creating new paper.[8][9]

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. Penn and Teller's Vatican Episode Missing: Self-Censorship?, richarddawkins.net
  2. See Tim Lambert's debunking of More Guns, Less Crime.
  3. Logical Science's review of the episode.
  4. Massimo Pigliucci's review of the episode.
  5. Night Talk: Interview with Penn Jillette
  6. Mea culpa: Secondhand smoke and the politics of science, The Skeptic's Dictionary newsletter
  7. Penn and Teller Second-Hand Smoke Correction
  8. Recycling paper pollutes more than making new paper, De-Fact-O
  9. Bullshit!, Waste360
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support