Navigating Pseudoscience with Nick Tiller, PhD #207

Dec 17

Episode overview:

Nick Tiller, PhD is an exercise scientist at Harbor-UCLA. He is also the author of The Skeptic’s Guide to Sports Science, columnist for Ultrarunning Magazine and the Skeptical Inquirer.

Episode highlights:

(9:09) Science communication: academics fighting back against media claims, Don't Be Such A Scientist, the importance of science communication, examples

(44:48) Identifying bad science: 28% increase in VO2max is a red flag, sedentary versus trained individuals, training and EPO example, unsubstantiated citations, statistical errors, absolute versus relative VO2max, retracting the article

(1:37:10) Inverse relationship between media presence and credentials: fitness influencers on Instagram, being a full-time influencer and capitalizing on sensationalization, science is incremental and rarely sensational

Our conversation:

(0:00) Introduction: Nick returns to the podcast, structuring the conversation from the absurd to the plausible, giving thanks to Nick

(2:45) KoopCast #27: Nick’s first appearance, the most downloaded KoopCast to date, banter, The Skeptic’s Guide to Sports Science

(5:37) Nick’s background: writing on the side to support his PhD, ultramarathon nutrition and myths and fallacies of sports science, writing The Skeptic’s Guide to Sports Science, gathering traction

(9:09) Science communication: academics fighting back against media claims, Don't Be Such A Scientist, the importance of science communication, examples

(12:47) Conversation outline: from the ridiculous to the misrepresented, leaving listeners with a toolkit for skepticism in sport, Nick on identifying the implausible and bad science

(16:15) Power balance bracelets: bankruptcy, holograms that resonate with natural frequencies, blinding with science, no evidence for efficacy, powerful marketing

(18:13) Infrared jewelry: radiation to shrink your fat cells, revisiting the marketing of power bands

(19:58) The harm in pseudoscience: false confidence, the real harm is blanket endorsement of placebo products, meningitis example

(22:51) Structured water: anecdote of a company randomly sending vortexed water to CTS, a wand with “mother water”

(24:57) Inventing ridiculous products: trying to come up with absurd products and then learning they already exist, weight loss earrings

(26:20) Plausible claims: yoga example, yoga is great for many things but healing and energy flow are not amongst them, example, plausible claims being undermined by nonsense

(28:28) Cupping and acupuncture: mainstream alternative medicine, ancient Chinese energy medicine, believing in qi, unblocking body meridians, qi does not exist, the invisible dragon example

(31:56) Mechanistic morphing: cupping replacing claims of “energy flow” with “blood flow”, alternative therapies retrofitting scientific claims, part of the skeptic’s toolkit, justifying product use

(34:23) Cold therapy and intermittent fasting: extending beyond true applications, appropriate tools for reducing pain sensation and weight loss respectively, quick, easy, and extreme solutions

(36:44) Dana White: blocking Nick on Twitter, banter, “do this thing twice a year and it will reduce your risk of cancer by 70%”, intermittent fasting does not cure cancer

(38:36) Research on cupping: increased localized blood flood does not aid recovery, blood flow at the skin does not reflect blood flow at the muscle, even a valid mechanism does not indicate useful results

(40:18) Bad science: not pseudoscience but real published research with poor methods, challenges with identifying bad science

(42:05) Vitamin D supplementation in identical twins: methods, muscle test, VO2max test, Vitamin D group increased VO2max by 28%, academic success

(49:12) Read the whole paper: reiterating Nick’s methods, 28% increase in VO2max is absurd, relative versus absolute VO2max, most people read the headlines or the abstract and not the full paper

(51:23) Prevalence of bad science: the Vitamin D study is one of many from the same experiment set, related papers published in Nature

(52:25) Oxygenated water: study title, 16.1km time trial and wingate tests, oxygen nanobubbles, results

(55:03) Additional considerations: trained versus untrained athletes, real-world tests and burden of proof, performance is the gold standard criteria

(57:20) Academic consensus: oxygenated water is well studied and reported to have no effect, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, mechanistic plausibility

(59:00) Mathematical breakdown of oxygenated water: inconsequential amounts of extra oxygen, calculations and examples, 0.091W (calculated) versus 10W (reported) benefit

(1:01:55) Sources of error and red flags: Occam’s razor, placebo, plausible mechanisms with implausible results, 15mL of extra oxygen should not grant an extra 60W during an anaerobic test

(1:03:46) Problems with academia: academics don’t get paid for reviews, most don’t have time to do diligent reviews, peer review still filters nonsense like homeopathy, “publish or perish”, we must be our own content regulators

(1:08:00) Challenges with identifying pseudoscience: example of the papers Jason selects for Research Essentials, even after a cursory review filter half of the papers have egregious errors

(1:09:25) Filtering pseudoscience: be weary of those selling a product or idea, you need knowledge of statistics and research methodology, example of a paper Nick rejected

(1:12:04) Red flags in marketing claims: manipulating biases, examples, logical fallacies, direct response marketing

(1:14:43) Filtering extraordinary claims: use your personal expertise, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is, breakthroughs of 2-4% are rare, example

(1:16:20) The cost-benefit ratio: supershoes example, 28% VO2max improvement from Vitamin D is an implausible ratio, discerning plausible levels of improvement, contextualizing improvement with effort, examples of barefoot running and anti-obesity drugs

(1:19:59) Plausibility: subject-specific knowledge, nonsense of homeopathy example, Vitamin D for deficiency example, know the boundaries of plausible claims

(1:21:59) Mechanism of action: chemistry example, interventions must affect the rate limiting step, oxygenated water and graduate dissertation examples

(1:26:06) Examining the evidence: investigating the body of literature, sample sizes, defer to experts when you need to, read beyond the headlines, there is a study out there to support anything

(1:28:25) Finding reliable experts: curating the experts you listen to, experts still make mistakes, red flags from experts who oppose the scientific consensus, Tim Noakes example, Tim has blocked both Nick and Jason on Twitter

(1:32:11) Jason on curating a list of experts: tracking references from trusted sources, echo chamber argument, expanding your circle from the most qualified individuals

(1:34:35) Health and wellness: influences and influencers, example of experts straying from their lane, filtering superficial health and wellness content, true experts often don’t have the media presence of influencers

(1:38:40) What experts to follow: curating a Twitter list, go follow Louise Burke, followers are not credentials

(1:40:35) Wrap-up: where to find Nick, check out Nick’s website, Nick’s development and excellent writing, communication is a craft

(1:43:13) Outro: banter, competing for Nick’s time with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, links to Nick’s website, curated Twitter list in the show notes, check out Research Essentials for Ultrarunning with Nick

Additional resources:

You can find all of Nick’s work here, https://www.nbtiller.com/

Koop’s Twitter list-

Louise Burke- @LouiseMBurke

Asker Jukendrup- @Jeukendrup

Brad Schoenfeld-@BradSchoenfeld

Guillaume Millet- @kinesiologui

Stuart Phillips- @mackinprof

Michael Joyner @DrMJoyner

Kristy Sale- @ElliottSale

Trent Stellingwerff- @TStellingwerff

Inigo San Milan-@doctorinigo