The Doctor Bones
QuackBusters Show
Doctor Bones
"The Scientist Who
Saves
People Money!"
Greetings! My name is Prof. Don Mueller, although I'm perhaps better
known as "Doctor Bones." Thanks for stopping by for a peek into my QuackBusters Show. This is a "live" show that I perform throughout the United States. The goal of the QuackBusters Show is to inform the public about health
quackery, pseudoscience and science fraud. In doing so, we examine a sizeable portion of the multitude of "half-baked" health information that is made available to us each year through various outlets: TV, radio, books, newspapers, magazines, internet, celebrity endorsements (infomercials) of health-related products/services and more. Along the way, I do my best to identify the parties that I refer to as the many "Faces of Quackery" and "Promoters of Half-Baked Health Information." Because there are so many of these people promoting dubious health information perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I'm making a valiant attempt at debunking them and giving quackery the Boot!"
It is not always easy for
the public to spot quackery. You've heard the sayings, "You can fool
some of the people all of the time..." and "There's a sucker born every
minute." Fortunately, I have found that people are generally pleased to learn how they can sharpen their skills at identifying phony
health-related products and services (I call it learning how to use a baloney detection
meter) thus keeping their money out of
the hands of
would-be quacks. Consequently, Doctor Bones has become affectionately known as "The Scientist Who
Saves
People Money!"
Pseudoscience, health
quackery and science fraud form a
multi-billion dollar industry. It's a breath of fresh air when the
public can hear from a reputable scientist like myself who can assure
them (with the facts) that they need not waste their money.
Does magnetic underwear really work? What about these so-called "ionized"
bracelets that reportedly eliminate nagging pains? How about the latest diets to help you lose weight fast and easily? These are just some of the many topics that we cover in the QuackBusters Show.
In
my quest to present reliable science-based health information to
the public I have no reservations (and pull no punches) about taking on the many "Faces of Quackery" and "Promoters of Half-Baked Health Information:" Dr. Phil,
Andrew Weil, Gary Null,
Barry Sears, Nicholas Perricone, Deepak Chopra, Marilu Henner and so
many, many others. These are people who
consistently purport "fuzzy" to bogus health information along with the
sale of
their best-selling books, pills, potions and lotions.
The public simply needs
to know the facts about health. Not just a lot of health-related information supercharged with hype, opinion and
speculation.
You've heard the phrase, "Show me the money." Well, as a scientist I
must insist on saying, "Show me the data." In this case, the data (if there is any) for
the advertised health-related products or services.
With data in hand it is then time to analyze the data and see if it
makes any sense with what we know about the world. That's real science
at work!
Doctor Bones on 1010 Wins Radio:
I invite you to click on the following radio segments to listen to the "Funny Man of Health" Doctor Bones as interviewed by John Montone:
Segment 1:__Diet Nonsense Promoted by Mighty Oprah
Segment 2:__Too Many Pills, Potions and Lotions
Segment 3:__Tuning up your Baloney Detection Meter
Doctor Bones talks about health on the nationally syndicated radio show "Feelin' Just Ducky" with host Barbra Alexander. Just click on the link below.
Feelin' Just Ducky - Radio Interview
Doctor Bones on The Jordan Rich Show
Click on the following link for the 16-minute interview:
Interview - Jordan Rich Show
The Discussion:
Good Science vs. Not so Good Science
(i.e., Pseudoscience, Pathological Science,
Junk Science and Bad Science)
Some Definitions:
Good Science - The public often equates science with absolute certainty. However, contrary to popular belief, science is not simply concerned with acquiring facts. Instead good science is concerned with assigning likelihood and uncertainty with science facts and evaluating how these "facts" fall into place with what we know about the world. In the search for truth, science is a never-ending process of re-education. It is the scientific method that weeds out bad science. Scientific truths are the survivors of the scientific process.
Pseudoscience - is a collection of thoughts, experiments, etc., that often masquerade as science. Pseudoscience is also referred to as fringe or alternative science. Perhaps the biggest problem with pseudoscience is the usual deficiency of the carefully controlled and interpreted experiments, which are hallmark of the scientific process.
Pathological Science - is simply science that has run amok. Although rare, when pathological science occurs it's usually because some of us in the scientific community have been "asleep at the wheel" so to speak. The normal self-correcting process of peer review has either been delayed so that incorrect findings can become widely available or because the peer review process was faulty thus allowing for mistakes to remain unchecked.
Junk Science - The term junk science is often unclear in its intended meaning. For example, junk science has been used to describe bad science. However, the junk science "label" has also been employed by various groups hoping to discredit what may in fact be legitimate science in order to promote or protect a particular agenda be it political, economic, environmental and so forth. Because the junk science banner is usually associated with a political or ideological element the term has (at least in this day and age) been viewed with disfavor by many in the scientific community. In other words, it may be difficult to tell if it really is junk science.
Bad Science - is science-based information that is deemed incorrect or erroneous and it is eventually discredited. For example, the planetary model of the atom (electrons orbiting the atomic nucleus in fixed orbits) that we learned in grade school science class, although a useful approximation was replaced by the more accurate quantum mechanical model of the atom, which most science student's first learn about in college. It would not be surprising if the quantum mechanical model is one day replaced by yet another more accurate model of the atom. This is the scientific process in action.
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