Mythbusters - I hope it's not elevating itself over certain aquatic predators...

[SixSixSix]

I have no idea how far behind we are for the Mythbusters series, so I don't know whether this is a recent episode by US standards or not. But it was on in Oz on Monday night.

In this episode, they examine the myths surrounding what is purported to be an ancient battery. (They also have an Adam/Jamie contest for cooling beer, and they drop a car from a crane while rebuilding Buster the crash test dummy).

Possibly I am way off base here, but the battery one investigated three possibilities. One of these was that it was used for electroplating (fine, no problem - and it did work). Another was that it was used to make people feel they had experienced god (poor Adam - that was a mean stunt - but again, I have no problem with this; though it's a fairly cynical use to put such an invention to, there were no doubt con men in the ancients as much as there are today).

It is the second use I found a bit off the wall. The claim was made that it was used for pain relief ala acunpuncture. In and of itself I don't have an issue with that, but the show was not at all critical of acupuncture in the modern era. I was under the impression that this had been pretty convincingly discredited.

Am I missing something, or is Mythbusters not as skeptic-friendly as I had previously imagined?

[Humphreys]

I didn't see the show.

What did they actually say about acupuncture?

[SixSixSix]

They went to a "qualified" acupuncturist and let him firstly try his normal needles and current, and then connect it up to the ancient battery replica.

It wasn't so much what they said, as what they didn't say. The lady undergoing the process, for example, said she felt pain relief with the initial ("normal") process, and not so much with the ancient battery. Hardly a double blind test, and not at all critical of whether the guy administering it should even be on what is (allegedly) a science based entertainment program.

Possibly I'm being overly critical here. It's not like they came out and endorsed acupuncture. I just didn't like seeing it there at all.

[Humphreys]

Originally posted by SixSixSix
Possibly I'm being overly critical here. It's not like they came out and endorsed acupuncture. I just didn't like seeing it there at all.

I dunno. It sounds to me they at least implied there might be something to it, and by not criticizing acupuncture people might come away with the wrong idea, like "Mythbusters endorse acupuncture".

Sounds either a little irresponsible on their part, or they just don't realize it's not valid science.

I'd be interested in knowing whether people here think of acupuncture as pseudoscience or protoscience.

[SixSixSix]

It's also entirely possible that the use of electricity in an acupuncture-like fashion does have some scientific/medical credibility - I'm not a doctor, after all, and if I'm wrong about the discredited thing I'm more than happy to admit this was my bad.

Kind of annoyed now that I won't be able to ask Adam and Jamie about it directly at TAM4.

[Dredred]

I always thought acupuncture was nonsense, but when a friend of mine, who is an acupuncturist, offered to treat my shoulder (which was painful for over a month at that point, caused by too much weight-lifting), the pain in my shoulder instantly disappeared and didn't come back for years. It might have been placebo effect, but I'm not so quick to condemn acupuncture anymore.

Edit: Of course, the pain didn't disappear when he offered to treat it (as I wrote), but when he treated it...

[Zep]

Having metal needles stuck in you and some electrical current passed through them could quite conceivably do something to your anatomy. Of course, he could have used simple metal pads and just stuck them to your skin, for the same effect, but that would not be "alternative medicine" then, would it! :D

[Zep]

Since I DO intend to be at TAM next year, I would like to see something combining acupuncture AND blowing stuff up (i.e. the usual Mythbusters gig). Perhaps putting 40,000 volts through the acupuncture needles would do it??

:D

[c4ts]

Generally the Mythbusters try to stay away from woo woo myths and stick to urban legend. I seem to remember Adam complaining that pyramid power was too crazy for the show.

[Kevin_Lowe]

I saw the episode, and I would have liked to see them stick the boot into acupuncture even if it was just a little bit.

However the question was not so much whether hooking an acupuncture needle up to a Baghdad battery was medically efficacious, but rather whether it was something ancient people might have plausibly done. Since it appeared to have an effect the subject could feel, they concluded that the people who built the battery might have used it for adding zap to acupuncture. I thought that was fair enough.

[oglommi]

Originally posted by Humphreys

I'd be interested in knowing whether people here think of acupuncture as pseudoscience or protoscience.


My older brother had severe pain in one leg and after about six months he tried acupuntcture and it worked like a charm. I honestly don't know if it was placebo or not but I don't think it is impossible that acupuncture actually works on some problems with musclepain and so forth. How ever I don't believe it can cure cancer or anything really serious.

[c4ts]

The most I can see acupuncture doing is stimulating nerve endings. It might be drawing attention away from painful areas.

[Humphreys]

I actually read in The Sun (which I don't trust at all, for obvious reasons) that tests had been done to prove conclusively that acupuncture works better than placebo for pain relief, such as headaches.

Does anyone know of these tests, and possible criticisms of the protocols?

[Francois Tremblay]

Well, acupuncture-like treatments may work in very limited circumstances, but it's not acupuncture. Acupuncture is based on chi currents or whatever.

[Nick Bogaerts]

I've seen only a handful of episodes of Mythbusters, and occasionally found it very annoying.

Not because it is bad; it isn't. But because it isn't as good as it ought to be.

They do a very good job at showing how experimentation works, and how it can be used to evaluate a claim. Unfortunately, they often fail to display the rigour needed for their experiments.

One episode I remember was when they were testing to see if cell phones could cause fires in petrol stations. They came up with two different hypotheses, the cellphone one, and the idea that static electricity from clothes rubbing on car seats were the culprit.

They proceeded to build a very flashy experimental setup (showmanship comes in handy) with two enclosed spaces containing a mix of vaporised fuel and air, one with a ringing cellphone, the other with a piece of clothing rubing against a plastic rod.

Both failed to ignite the fuel.

They nevertheless concluded that the latter hypothesis was vindicated, and that cellphones did not cause fires. All the basics were there, their conclusion was probably right, but their own experiment was botched, and they chose to ignore it. A great shame.

[Hastur]

Considering the ancients thought opening a person's skull could cure mental disorders, I think they could conceive running the strange power from the Baghdad battery into a person's muscles as an analgesic. The Greeks or Romans did something similar with electric eels in public baths.

[c4ts]

Originally posted by Hastur
Considering the ancients thought opening a person's skull could cure mental disorders, I think they could conceive running the strange power from the Baghdad battery into a person's muscles as an analgesic. The Greeks or Romans did something similar with electric eels in public baths.

These are the same ancients who thought you could cure all disease if you bled enough, that the heart was a furnace which cooked blood (which the liver produced), and that scraping yourself with pumice and rubbing your body with gladiator sweat somehow made you clean...

[princhester]

Generally, I just love Mythbusters, but I am sadly coming to the conclusion that the series has indeed jumped the shark.

I saw the episode in question. The urban myth theme was basically gone. The beer cooling thing was a non event. There was no attempt to explain in scientific terms why or how what they were doing worked or didn't. Then there was the Baghdad Battery thing which was purest speculation: it seemed to be more about zapping Adam (some sort of Reality TV stunt? or what?) than urban myths, science or whatever. Then there was a totally non critical mention of the "benefits" of acupuncture. And to top it off (and in keeping with several recent episodes) the final thing with the car was just a silly stunt: let's drop a car. No science, not testing anything, just a Bang.

I hate it, I so much want the show to continue to be great, but the doubts are well and truly crept in.

[pjh]

Which myth has most surprised you (contradicted a previous belief that it was either true or false)?

I was amazed that poppy seeds were giving false positive drug tests. If you'd asked me before seeing it I'd have said these it was rubbish, but it goes to show ...

[Dredred]

Originally posted by pjh
I was amazed that poppy seeds were giving false positive drug tests.
Me too.

They tested the myth that marching soldiers can cause a bridge to collapse when they march at a frequency that matches the natural resonant frequency of the bridge.
They failed to reproduce this effect and considered the myth busted, but I think their experiments weren't done right, and the myth is true.

[princhester]

Originally posted by Dredred
They tested the myth that marching soldiers can cause a bridge to collapse when they march at a frequency that matches the natural resonant frequency of the bridge.
They failed to reproduce this effect and considered the myth busted, but I think their experiments weren't done right, and the myth is true.

I don't know if the myth is true. In fact I'd be fairly sure it wasn't. The soldiers would stop marching or change pace when the bridge started to wobble dangerously, and the resonance would stop.

But I 100% agree that the Mythbusters' very, very limited attempts to recreate the myth in no way disproved it.

[Hastur]

Mythbusters is not the final word on anything they show. Experiments are never perfect; look at all the debate over Kettlewell's pepper moth experiments. If anyone here thinks Jamie and Adam have gone wrong, how about improving on their experiment and then sending them the tape? Mythbusters is a TV show; as such it has to entertain on a limited budget and the experiments will thus not be as nice and neat as a research lab that is being paid to just do the experiment.

[TheBoyPaj]

In the Mythbusters Revisited episode, they had another go at the mobile phone + petrol stunt, and they attempted to create a spark by shorting the battery and by stripping the insulation from the aerial. Still no luck. They also had another go at breaking a bridge, but it seemed to consist of just jumping up and down on some flimsy wood and breaking it.


Best and most surprising experiment? The "Bulletproof Water" one, where they tested the claim that one could be protected from gunfire by hiding under water.

For those who have not seen it, they set up a rig in a swimming pool where a series of guns were fired at a ballistic gel block at an angle of around 30 degrees down into the water. The bullets broke apart on contact with the water and the pieces floated harmlessly down to the bottom of the tank! Even a .50 calibre sniper bullet could not pass through a few metres of water.

I'm sure I have seen bullets flying past people underwater in the movies (Saving Private Ryan for example). Clearly these would have been composited on (for safety reasons), but were they not even real bullets to start with? CGI?

[Hastur]

Maybe fragments or water being pushed deeper by the bullet's entry.

[luchog]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
For those who have not seen it, they set up a rig in a swimming pool where a series of guns were fired at a ballistic gel block at an angle of around 30 degrees down into the water. The bullets broke apart on contact with the water and the pieces floated harmlessly down to the bottom of the tank! Even a .50 calibre sniper bullet could not pass through a few metres of water.

I'm sure I have seen bullets flying past people underwater in the movies (Saving Private Ryan for example). Clearly these would have been composited on (for safety reasons), but were they not even real bullets to start with? CGI?

It depends on the angle at which they hit, and the bullet shape, how the force of the impact is transmitted. If you fire within 5 degrees of vertical, using a tapered pointed round (the typical rifle round), the area of impact is going to be very small, the force is going to be transmitted laterally through the water because of the shape of the surface impacting the water and the minimal displacement, very little energy will be absorbed in the collision, and the bullet will have no problem penetrating the surface. Changing the angle, the shape of the bullet, and the bullet jacketing, will alter the impact characteristics and produce varied results. Velocity at time of impact will also have a significant effect on the collision.

Smaller, tapered FMJ rounds (the typical military round) will tend to penetrate better, losing less energy in the collision, than will larger, semi-jacketed, and hollowpoint rounds. The more water that is displaced, the more energy is involved in the collision, and the more likely the bullet will be deflected.

The original test sounds decidedly simplistic.

[chance]

I like mythbusters, for same of the reasons others dislike it, i.e. it’s not pure science, but rather a lay persons attempts at doing science.
It never fails to provoke a debate at work as we pick the experiment apart. However we all agree that explosions are cool and there should be more (and bigger) of them :)

[TheBoyPaj]

Originally posted by luchog
The original test sounds decidedly simplistic.

Well, of course I left out a few details. They chose a 30 degree angle because they figured that if you were being shot at by a guy standing on the side of a lake or river (as in the films they were trying to emulate), then the angle would be something like that. They used a series of guns ranging from pistols to the big sniper rifle, so maybe they used some of the bullets you suggest.

[tsg]

Originally posted by Nick Bogaerts
They nevertheless concluded that the latter hypothesis was vindicated, and that cellphones did not cause fires. All the basics were there, their conclusion was probably right, but their own experiment was botched, and they chose to ignore it. A great shame.

IIRC, their conclusion that static electricity caused fires was due to outside research and not their experimentation. They showed a clip from a public service film of a fireman starting a fire at a gasoline pump by static electricity. They were just unabled to reproduce it. Their conclusion that cellphones were not responsible was also backed up by outside evidence.

Not that they haven't been guilty of some bad experimentation, but I don't think this particular example was all that bad.

[tsg]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
Well, of course I left out a few details. They chose a 30 degree angle because they figured that if you were being shot at by a guy standing on the side of a lake or river (as in the films they were trying to emulate), then the angle would be something like that. They used a series of guns ranging from pistols to the big sniper rifle, so maybe they used some of the bullets you suggest.

The thing that bothered be about this episode is that they fired two relatively small caliber guns from a vertical position, found they both penetrated the gel, and, having broken their testing tank on a larger caliber gun, switched to the 30 degree entry experiment (in which no bullet was able to penetrate the gel) without testing the first two guns again.

The experiment I particularly have a problem with is the "driving while talking on a cellphone is as dangerous as driving drunk" claim. All they managed to prove is that talking on a cellphone under the worst possible conditions (highly distracting call requiring a lot of concetration from the driver on a very difficult driving course) is as dangerous as drinking the legal amount of alcohol.

[tube]

By and large I greatly enjoy Mythbusters too, but I'm afraid there is a venal, juvenile undercurrent that keeps cropping up in that the smart one is constantly being ridiculed. For me, it is an acute reminder of the pain I went through in childhood. But then again, this is TV and venal and juvenile are to be expected.

The smart one seems to be the only one in the bunch that does not seem to be constantly mugging to the camera; "look at me, I'm on TV"! "Look at me, I was on a toilet paper commercial".

Please, more of the smart, mature one and less of the one that can't spell the word "magnetron".

Has anyone considered that the Baghdad battery (actually a cell) could have been a toy? Could it have simply been touched to the tongue to cause a slight tingle? I was skeptical that the small voltage produced by the thing could even be detected by the tongue, but one of the crew is shown licking it and getting a reaction. Electroplating? Acupuncture? I vote for toy...

[Iamme]

I was disappointed when Buster could not jump up, fast enough, in the crashing elevator test...thereby dispelling the theory that one could save themselves by jumping up in an elevator at the last second, if it were crashing down. Rats. I'm never going in an elevator again. I always figured Id just jump up, and as I was by the ceiling, the elevator would crumple below me, and I'd live. :D

[TheBoyPaj]

I have just watched the episode with the battery, and I agree. The whole episode was well down on previous efforts. The bit about acupuncture was very credulous. The woman being treated even said "I feel my chi moving".

Still, maybe it was a blip. All TV shows have a "Shades Of Gray" episode.

[Renfield]

Originally posted by c4ts
Generally the Mythbusters try to stay away from woo woo myths and stick to urban legend. I seem to remember Adam complaining that pyramid power was too crazy for the show.

That stuffs true. I read about it in one of those time/life series. You make the symbol of power and point it at the pyramid and bang, you get a big shock.

Its awesome.

[Oregon_Skeptic]

Regarding acupuncture: American Scientific Frontiers examined the placebo effect in 2003, and in doing so they looked at acupuncture in those terms. Here is the transcript (http://www.pbs.org/saf/1307/resources/transcript.htm) for that episode.

[Michael Gray]

A recent study claims to have found acupuncture effective in certain circumstances:

"THERE is more to acupuncture than just the placebo effect, a brain imaging study suggests.
Clinical studies suggest that acupuncture can help treat a few conditions, such as nausea after operations, although for others, such as trying to stop smoking, it makes no difference (New Scientist, 26 May 2001, p 42). But no one is sure exactly how it achieves its effects. Acupuncture can stimulate the release of painkilling endorphins - but so can pretending to insert an acupuncture needle"
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18624984.300
(Subscription Required for full article)

And the Abstract:
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/141/12/911

"Acupuncture 'works for arthritis'"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4111047.stm

The only thing that made me wince about the Ancient D Cell episode of MB, was Scottie's utter credulity.
"Chi"? on Myth-busters?
Perhaps they'll work her myth into another show.
Let's hope.

[alfaniner]

Does anyone else keep mixing up the guys' names? I am almost always surprised when I hear them called by name because I always think the goofier one is Jamie and the serious one is Adam. Perhaps because I knew a Jamie that looked like Adam (or is it the other way around??)

[TheBoyPaj]

Doesn't that brain imaging report just show that our brains are not fooled by the sham methods that are commonly used in acupunture trials?

[c4ts]

Originally posted by Renfield
That stuffs true. I read about it in one of those time/life series. You make the symbol of power and point it at the pyramid and bang, you get a big shock.

Its awesome.

Huh?