Sunday, June 20, 2010

Martin Gardner takes on Oprah before his final departure

Somebody had to do it.

Oprah Winfrey: Bright (but Gullible) Billionaire by Martin Gardner
Skeptical Inquiry, Volume 34.2, March / April 2010.
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/oprah_winfrey_bright_but_gullible_billionaire/

I think he was too kind.

1 comment:

Nell said...

as a worshipper of the Holy Messiah Lord Oprah Christ....i think the criticisms of her are wishy-washy.

there are more and likely a number of doctors or medical associations that would say the doctors featured in this article are the "crazies", and that theres a 50/50 chance the doctors on Oprah's shows have some legitimacy. Oprah, nor the guests (celebrities) on her shows purport to being doctors or medical experts. her show is simply offering alternative opinions of commonly held notions of medicine.and a healthy sense of varying perspectives on diseases, illnesses, and ailments has no negatives.
in addition, what is this fetish we (mainly westerners) have with science? science is, at many times subjective and iffy. its highly likely that a vaccination caused the slight autism in McCarthy's son, and its quite likely that most children simply have autism as a mutation in their DNA that happened early in the womb.
almost nothing in science is 100%, so why act as if it is? science is not the infallible end all be all of knowledge.
and know that this is coming from an atheist.
sidenote-great blog.