While I have spent several episodes and parts of others talking about how challenging and potentially negative social media can be, I still use it and probably more than I should. Amongst all the other dreck that fills my social media feeds, I do see other scientists and doctors fighting against misinformation just like I am, but they often have much higher profiles. In this episode, I name a few that I follow and discuss the challenges of being in such a position, the difficulties of talking with skeptics, having millions of followers and dealing with potential threats. This is a more reflective episode than we have done recently, and I am glad you will be able to hear my thoughts on this topic. 

Episode Transcript

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Adrianna and I talk about the life and legacy of Erin Brockovich, well known for the movie about her fight to bring money and justice to the victims of a chemical plume in Hinkley, California, starring Julia Roberts. Erin’s fight for clean water has gone far beyond that initial struggle and she now spends a lot of time and effort highlighting the problems with PFAS and other forever chemicals. However, her work is slightly complicated by the misinformation she shares about fluoride in drinking water sources, and it is important to share that part of her current life as well. We do so in this excellent conversation.

Episode Transcript

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We have already talked a lot about various wellness spaces, but one area that still remains a mystery to many is the “Manosphere”. These spaces focus on young men, promoting a toxic culture of misogyny, physical health and prowess, pick-up culture and social isolation. Val Pilmaier, an old friend and colleague and an English, Gender and Sexuality, and Women’s studies professor joins me to dissect this culture and how it profoundly affecting many boys and young men in the age of social media.  

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It has been a few months since I last visited my mental health journey, and I wanted to pick up where I left off and draw the story up to present day. In this episode, I go over in detail how I returned to counseling, dealt with a significant loss in my life, and decided that medication was something that I should try. I have found these episodes to be quite cathartic, so as time passes, I will certainly come back to this topic in the future. Discussing mental health always helps me, and I hope it will help you also. 

Episode Transcript

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My guest and new intern Adrianna joins me for a conversation about her academic and career goals, interest in science communication and how she will be using the new @baloneydetectionintern Instagram account. I want to reach more students both at our university and other places also, and having a student engaging with the target demographic is a great avenue to take. You will be hearing much more from Adrianna this spring! 

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New guest, Chelsea Wooding, joins me to discuss how performance, “finding the edge” can drive many different people like athletes, dancers, executives and others to different mental support practices. Social media is full of influencers and personalities who will try to be life coaches and provide mantras, gimmicks and products to help get that peak performance, but would you really trust them without the proper expertise? Chelsea brings the real expertise to this episode and we cover a lot of topics, including the mental aspects of performance, the role of emotions in performance, and how Chelsea’s two different careers overlap and help each other.  

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Amanda Shaker returns to discuss something that has been in the wellness space quite a lot recently. Seed oils have become one of the new “bad guys” in the wellness world, because of an alleged connection between the oils and one of the main wellness boogeymen: “inflammation”. Make sure you listen to the Pseudoshort, as I go through a basic chemistry lesson about the structure of fatty acid acids which will help to understand our discussion of the fats in seed oils. As always, make sure you listen to different voices and that includes dietician Amanda Shaker. 

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We talk a lot about different products on this podcast, but this interview with the two women who created Serious Lip Balm offers a glimpse into the challenges and rewards of developing a business. This was a fun hour of stories, insights and humor. I learned a lot about product creation and how economic issues can trickle into the smallest of businesses. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

Episode transcript available!

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Have you ever been tempted to “cleanse”? There are many products on the market that suggest that they can get rid of “toxins” from your body, making you feel healthier and have more energy. But do these products really do anything that your body cannot? The same kind of analysis should be used for pet-related products, because, eventually, human products find their way to pets. Stephanie Evenson returns to talk about what the human body can do to remove materials and how supplements are marketed to both human and pet owners. 

Episode transcript available!

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Dr. Amy Kabrhel is back for a wonderful and therapeutic conversation about the use of social media, engaging with misinformation online, and how to emotionally deal with disappointment, anger, and frustration. Both of us use social media to a varying degree and our emotional responses are very different. We touch on specific types of information we see, including a little wellness, but once again, Amy brings a level of introspection and understanding that really balances me out.  

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Continuing the mini-series of episodes about social media, algorithms fit right into this season’s long-term story about Wellness. If you are a social media user, you know that once you click on one post, dozens of other posts on that same topic will suddenly be flooding your feed, whether you want them to or not. This is results of the hidden but powerful algorithms that boost content to get more views and keep your eyes glued to whichever screen you are using. This is a great benefit to companies and content creators who are fighting for your attention and the money in your pocket. Algorithms do not need to be a mystery, and I will make sure that by the end of the episode, you will know what you are dealing with. 

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I get to share some interesting stories in this discussion about Reiki and crystals which always help frame the story. We start by talking about what energy is from a physics and chemistry aspect before describing the origin and nature of Reiki and what crystals can and cannot do. That Himalayan salt lamp may be a huge crystal and look beautiful, but it is not going to ionize the air around you. It’s important to know why and we will talk about that! 

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This episode kicks off a special series of episodes focused on “Wellness”. Specifically, we are going to dive into the deep end with various Wellness topics, how much Wellness has pervaded social media spaces and political discourse. There is a huge amount of pseudoscience and misinformation in Wellness, and we are going to look at many different topics to hopefully give you some better information to make decisions. This first episode will deal with many important definitions and terminologies related to Wellness, to make subsequent analyses and discussions easier. 

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We left off my journey at the end of my graduate school experience and headed into my first teaching job. That new experience along with my upcoming wedding gave me a lot of different things to think about that first year of my real career. Having a life partner to help to ground me keep me feeling supported and comforted, but anyone who has had problems with their mental health knows that having a full support system does not preclude having anxiety, panic and depression. Navigating the academic job market, owning a house and having a child all provided me with many things to deal with that still gave me anxiety and panic attacks, and it is only in recent years that I have found the tools to keep myself even keeled and flourishing. This will not be the last episode of this mini-series, but this is a very important part of the journey. 

Transcript for this episode.

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The addition of fluoride to drinking water is considered one of the top public health developments of the 20th century. The reduction of tooth decay in citizens where fluoride was added has significantly benefited millions. Though the federal government recommended the addition after World War II, not all municipalities chose to incorporate fluoride, and now places have already removed fluoride or are considering the action thanks to confusing information spread on the internet and a rescinding of support for the practice from the federal government. We will discuss how fluoride helps oral health, the chemistry behind it, and some of the controversies that are part of the situation.

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This week’s Pseudoshort: Ad Hominem 

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With a measles outbreak occurring and potentially more childhood disease outbreaks on the horizon due to vaccine skepticism, it is a great time to talk about how the current anti-vax movement developed, and how it is affecting policy decisions made by the current administration. Science denialism is at the heart of many of these decisions and it is incredibly important that we face that information with scientific data. We are now getting into more controversial topics, but it does not help the greater good if we stay silent. 

This week’s Pseudoshort: Confirmation Bias 

Community Lecture about Vaccines (March 3, 2015)

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The advertising of consumer products contains a lot of different buzzwords and phrases. Have you seen this one: “Four Out of Five Dentists Recommend This Toothe Paste”. I remember that kind of phrase a lot from my childhood. But who are those four dentists and why did the fifth one not recommend the product? We look into phrases like this one and try to find out if there is any truth to the words, and what you can do to see past the marketing.  

This week’s Pseudoshort: Spicy Food and Ulcers 

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When you are deeply angry about a certain subject, but you know that getting into conversations with others could be controversial and acrimonious, what do you do? I have been struggling with this very thing for a long time now, and I am just realizing that I have to engage with that anger, with those controversies, rather than just shy away and stay away from the difficult conversations. Taking a break from interviews, in this episode I spend a bit of time going through some recent thoughts, trying to convince myself I am going in the right direction with how I deal with misinformation and pseudoscience. Do not worry: this is not an existential crisis, just more of an important level of pondering. 

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Jodi Pierre is a research and instruction librarian at the University of Wisconsin‐Green Bay, where she specializes in information literacy, instruction, research assistance, and web and digital content design. She earned a Master of Library and Information Science from UW Milwaukee and a Bachelor of Arts from Beloit College. Jody has been with the University of Wisconsin‐Green Bay since 2016. 

Jodi shares some interesting and important information about the use of AI and how it is changing rapidly. This is a very important conversation and one that we will be continuing into the future as AI evolves. 

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Stephanie Evenson is a veterinarian and a teaching professor for the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. Stephanie has a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Masters degree in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Stephanie has been a colleague of mine at the Sheboygan campus of UW-Green Bay for many years, teaching a variety of biology, human biology, first-year seminar and general education courses. I have had many students tell me how much they love Stephanie as a teacher and I can think of no higher praise for an educator. Stephanie has a unique perspective to her teaching as a vet and brings that perspective to today’s episode. 

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Jeff Bellomo is a successful lawyer in South Central Pennsylvania. He also happens to be, as I said, one of my oldest and best friends. In our senior year at Juniata, Jeff was kind of the odd man out. He was a future lawyer living with three chemists slash scientists, but he also provided so much support, which hopefully we'll get to talk about. Jeff's expertise as a lawyer is an elder law, which we can all agree is incredibly important for families with older members and families in general. Jeff has created his own podcast, the Red Wagon Estate Planning and Elder Law Show, with the intent of having another platform for educating people about the right way to get legal help, especially for elder law. On top of being an outstanding lawyer and friend and parent, it is Jeff's desire to educate a variety of people about elder law and has given me so much respect for him and inspiration for this podcast. 

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Dr. Brian Merkel has been with UW Green Bay for 20 years and teaches courses courses in immunology, advanced microbiology, microbiology, and human disease in society. He currently studies the effects of the herbal supplement echinacea on the immune system in cell models and in human subjects. He's a pre‐health advisor for human biology and biology students and the advisor for UW Green Bay's chapter of the National Biological Honor Society, TriBeta. He also teaches medical students for the Medical College of Wisconsin in Green Bay. Dr. Merkel says that this experience has helped him become a better mentor, advisor, and teacher for all of the students he works with at UW Green Bay. I'd like to also add that Brian has recently won the UW Green Bay Founders Award for Excellence in Teaching for Faculty. Personally, Dr. Merkel is part of a couple of groups that I'm involved with, including a misinformation research group with several of our other colleagues, and also a set of rural health forums that we are a part of led by a friend of the podcast and former interviewee Amanda Hartlaub. 

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Jessica Warwick is an instructor at UW-Green Bay who teaches a variety of General Education, introductory and majors level classes. She also does research where data analysis is incredibly important. Our conversation went from teaching styles to research data analysis and adjusting to the rapidly changing student population. It is always a joy to have such an incredibly conversation with one of my colleagues. 

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At the end of Part 1 of this story, I had just graduated college and was ready for my journey to graduate school. The transition was challenging, but I managed to get settled before the real intensity of graduate school began. I continued to struggle and struggle until I met someone who gave me the emotional and eventually romantic support that I truly needed. This episode spans my graduate school career, leading up to what will be a third episode down the road. 

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Chemophobia is not a new phenomenon, but with how easy the Internet makes the spread of information, chemophobia has become a much bigger problem in today’s society. The fear of what materials are in a certain product helps drive the sales and profits for many companies, which leads to chemophobia featuring in advertisements. We will do a deep dive into chemophobia and how it is represented in what you see. 

Resources

• https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/how-do-drugs-get-named/2019-08#:~:text=Pharmaceutical%20names%20are%20assigned%20according,or%20indication%20of%20the%20drug. 
• https://www.npr.org/2008/04/24/89876927/michael-pollan-if-you-cant-say-it-dont-eat-it 
• https://www.cspinet.org/page/clean-labels 
• https://www.eatingwell.com/article/282469/clean-eating-foods-list/ 
• https://www.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/2017/08/what-does-clean-eating-mean-anyway 
• https://crystalclear-systems.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/dihydrogen-monoxide.jpg 
• https://www.prevention.com/food-nutrition/healthy-eating/a20449448/chemicals-in-food/ 
• https://www.beachbodyondemand.com/blog/18-ingredients-sound-dangerous-arent 
• https://www.livestrong.com/slideshow/13580758-harmless-food-additives/ 

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Amanda is a former student of mine going back to when the UW-Green Bay, Sheboygan Campus was known as UW-Sheboygan. Amanda has had a unique educational journey to get to her current position as a dietician in Albuquerque, NM. In this interview, we talk about her career path, diet misinformation and suggestions for current and future college students.  

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There are very few TV shows that I come back to, watching the episodes over and over again. M*A*S*H is an absolute classic in many ways, but the show means more to me than just watching. The writing and the characters have informed much of my personality and my teaching style. It was not until I became a working adult that I realized the show’s effect on me. 

Resources

• https://www.aldacenter.org/ 
• https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/368965 (Just Call me Mike) 
• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40600256-if-i-understood-you-would-i-have-this-look-on-my-face 

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As a university instructor, one of the hidden parts of my job is to listen to my students when they have more than just class related issues. I sometimes use my own experiences with mental health journal as examples to try and help students with their own struggles. I would like to share the first part of that journey with you. 

Resources

• https://www.nami.org/ 

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With our conversation about the social media platforms complete, we will move on to discussing specific aspects of the spread of misinformation on those platforms. Influencers are a growing subset of entrepreneurs online that sometimes associate with companies to sell products. Some influencers use misinformation and pseudoscience to help sales and gain more visibility. We will look at what areas of product and information influencers use that relate to science and wellness, who those influencers are and what reach they have. 

Resources

• https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-an-influencer/ 
• https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/04/climate/wellness-influencers-conspiracy-climate-intl/index.html 
• https://statenews.com/article/2023/01/the-vanilla-girl-aesthetic-white-influencers-and-colorism-students-discuss?ct=content_open&cv=cbox_latest 
• https://www.pcmag.com/news/how-racial-inequalities-affect-influencers 
• https://sproutsocial.com/insights/who-really-runs-the-brand-account/# 
• https://abcnews.go.com/Health/parents-vaccinate-kids-tend-affluent-educated-experts/story?id=60674519 

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I do not think that education about a particular subject should be limited to just one venue, particularly in the classroom. I began discussing current events and pseudoscience topics more than a decade ago in the classroom, but recently I have developed over avenues of education and research, including this podcast, academic research, and lab research with some of my students. In this episode, I will share the journey from poster projects to research projects and beyond. 

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Even now, there are few people that have affected my life as much as Mister Rogers. I grew up watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood and I took to heart all the lessons he taught. As an adult, I recognize the power of his ability to relate to others, not just children, and the kind and honest way he spoke about daily situations and important feelings. I find myself emulating Fred Rogers in the classroom and even how I present this podcast. I hope to show you how important Fred Rogers continues to be to me. 

Resources

• https://www.fredrogersinstitute.org/ 
• https://www.misterrogers.org/ 
• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38656999-the-good-neighbor 

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In this episode, I have the great honor of interviewing one of the most important people in my life, my wife Amy Kabrhel. As we have essentially the same job, we often share teaching ideas, philosophies on education, as well as views on sharing information. We discussed both Amy’s vast experience with scientific community outreach, as well as her views on sharing scientific information with the general public. 

Resources

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This will be the first episode in a series that goes deeper into how social media platforms operate and how misinformation spreads so easily on them. This episode will focus on the major platforms of social media, what kind of media they share and other important aspects of online speech that have given rise to how we share information online in the 2020s. 

Resources

• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-school-walls/202304/tribalism-in-the-age-of-social-media 
• https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/attention_economy_feb.pdf 
• https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/manipulated-media 
• https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/misinformation 
• https://www.tiktok.com/transparency/en-us/combating-misinformation/ 
• https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10834785?hl=en 
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-07/elon-musk-cuts-more-twitter-staff-overseeing-content-moderation?embedded-checkout=true 
• https://medium.com/@leoforman/ai-in-content-moderation-challenges-and-solutions-d26783a6a76b#:~:text=However%2C%20it's%20important%20to%20understand,based%20on%20context%20and%20judgment. 
• https://www.jmir.org/2021/5/e26933/ 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8164397/ 
• https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13278-023-01028-5 

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Celebrities have been selling their own products for ages. These celebrities are either the face of a particular product, or have developed their own lifestyle brands. We will dig into how some current celebrities are using their status and power for the sake of profit and how pseudoscience is inextricably linked with how celebrities sell products. 

Resources from this episode

• https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/jenny-mccarthy-were-not-an-anti-vaccine-movement-were-pro-safe-vaccine/ 
• https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/24/health/covid-vaccine-celebrity-influence-study/index.html 
• https://www.newsweek.com/covid-19-aaron-rodgers-mia-stars-who-still-anti-vaxx-1751603  
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10039410/  

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Send us an email, suggest a topic, or ask a question at baloneydetectionpodcast@gmail.com. Make sure to also follow us on Instagram!

View the transcript for this episode.

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Links: 

• https://www.security.org/digital-security/misinformation-disinformation-survey/ 
• View this episodes transcript

Send us an email, suggest a topic, or ask a question at baloneydetectionpodcast@gmail.com. Make sure to also follow us on Instagram!

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Send us an email, suggest a topic, or ask a question at baloneydetectionpodcast@gmail.com. Make sure to also follow us on Instagram!

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Books Referenced: 

• Vitamins and Health Foods: The Great American Hustle by Victor Herbert and Stephen Barrett 
• Natural: How Faith in Nature’s Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws and Flawed Science by Alan Levinovitz 

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Send us an email, suggest a topic, or ask a question at baloneydetectionpodcast@gmail.com.

View the transcript for this episode.

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Send us an email, suggest a topic, or ask a question at baloneydetectionpodcast@gmail.com.

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