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    Revisionist History

    Rodents and Red Wine with Maria Konnikova

    Thu Mar 09 2023
    Language LearningPartnerships in SportsSustainability SolutionsIodine DeficiencyNutrition StudiesMinnesota Starvation ExperimentInformed ConsentDutch Hunger WinterExtreme ExperimentsViolence in MediaRepresentative StudiesImportance of Including Women

    Description

    The episode explores various topics including language learning, partnerships in sports, sustainability solutions, iodine deficiency, nutrition studies, the Minnesota starvation experiment, informed consent, the Dutch hunger winter, extreme experiments, violence in media, representative studies, and the importance of including women in baseline knowledge studies.

    Insights

    Rosetta Stone offers lifetime unlimited subscription for language learning at 40% off

    Language learning can be made more accessible and affordable with lifetime unlimited subscriptions.

    Scientific evidence supports test with scientific controls in place

    Proper scientific controls and evidence are crucial for conducting reliable tests and experiments.

    Iodine may have contributed to shrinkage of patient's nodules and thyroids

    Iodine deficiency can lead to goiters, but its effects on health and nutrition are complex and require further study.

    Questions raised about necessary moral force and informed consent

    Informed consent is a challenging issue, especially when potential downsides are unknown, but natural experiments can provide valuable insights.

    Magnitude of what can be learned from an experiment should be an argument for doing the experiment

    The potential knowledge gained from experiments should be considered when weighing the risks and benefits.

    Pandora's Box myth and its relation to mattresses in a box

    The episode explores the relationship between ethical debates on medical experiments and concerns about violence in media.

    Baseline knowledge studies should include women because omitting more than half the population and their basic biology is different

    Including women in baseline knowledge studies is important to ensure a comprehensive understanding of health and biology.

    Chapters

    1. Rosetta Stone offers lifetime unlimited subscription for language learning at 40% off
    2. Scientific evidence supports test with scientific controls in place
    3. Iodine may have contributed to shrinkage of patient's nodules and thyroids
    4. Questions raised about necessary moral force and informed consent
    5. Magnitude of what can be learned from an experiment should be an argument for doing the experiment
    6. Pandora's Box myth and its relation to mattresses in a box
    7. Baseline knowledge studies should include women because omitting more than half the population and their basic biology is different
    Summary
    Transcript

    Rosetta Stone offers lifetime unlimited subscription for language learning at 40% off

    00:00 - 07:43

    • Major League Baseball partners with T-Mobile for Business to advance the game with 5G solutions
    • IBM and a Global Real Estate Company create Sustainability Solution using AI-driven insights
    • Malcolm Gladwell introduces Maria Konnikova as the first-ever revisionist history ombudsman
    • Discussion on the lack of iodine in people's diets and whether similar experiments could be done today
    • Maria suggests that consentless experiments are still conducted in the present day, such as disruptions caused by new technologies and Facebook algorithms

    Scientific evidence supports test with scientific controls in place

    07:18 - 14:38

    • A town official in Vermont lowers fluoride levels in the water, causing outrage
    • Adding fluoride to water and iodine to salt is beneficial for health, but opinions differ
    • The town's response may be influenced by concerns about fluoride and the official's abuse of power

    Iodine may have contributed to shrinkage of patient's nodules and thyroids

    14:17 - 21:44

    • Historically, iodine deficiency led to goiters in certain regions of the world
    • Nutrition is complex, making it difficult to definitively answer questions about its effects
    • Testing hypotheses about nutrition is challenging due to various confounding factors
    • Studies on alcohol consumption and health outcomes have yielded conflicting results
    • Research on resveratrol initially suggested health benefits but later revealed high dosage requirements
    • The Minnesota starvation experiment aimed to understand how prolonged malnutrition affects the body during World War II
    • The study sought to address the challenge of rehabilitating malnourished individuals after the war

    Questions raised about necessary moral force and informed consent

    21:22 - 28:42

    • Informed consent is challenging when potential downsides are unknown
    • Analogies to space flight and military service highlight different contexts for informed consent
    • Long-term effects of starvation were not fully understood at the time of the study
    • Data from the Dutch hunger winter provided valuable insights into the effects of starvation
    • Starvation has lifelong consequences, including changes in gene methylation patterns
    • Starvation during pregnancy can have long-term effects on both mother and child, potentially impacting future generations
    • Natural experiments like the Dutch hunger winter provide important data compared to intentional studies

    Magnitude of what can be learned from an experiment should be an argument for doing the experiment

    28:21 - 35:54

    • Altruistic motives should be considered in the consent algorithm for experiments
    • Valid argument for extreme experiments to address urgent problems like malnutrition
    • Responsibility lies with the system that restricts breakthrough research and fails to take accountability for mistakes
    • Safeguards are necessary due to unethical studies that lack informed consent and cross ethical boundaries
    • Balancing risk and benefit in research is challenging, especially before it happens
    • Researchers should have freedom to do risky experiments, but there are exceptions where caution is needed

    Pandora's Box myth and its relation to mattresses in a box

    35:25 - 42:54

    • Concerns about violence in media compared to ethical debates on medical experiments
    • Trauma surgeons' perspective on violence in movies
    • Need for more diverse research data, especially regarding eating disorders and obesity
    • Challenges of conducting representative studies
    • Trade-off between representativeness and feasibility of studies

    Baseline knowledge studies should include women because omitting more than half the population and their basic biology is different

    42:31 - 49:51

    • Obtaining consent from vulnerable populations like Hispanic and Black individuals is more difficult due to negative research done without consent
    • Conducting a starvation experiment with young women may have consequences for fertility
    • Using postmenopausal women in experiments raises different issues as they are less susceptible to risks
    • Natural experiments can provide valuable information that formal experiments cannot
    • Engineering natural experiments by continuously monitoring physiological signs and vital signs of millions of people could improve understanding of diseases
    • Privacy concerns hinder the implementation of large-scale data collection for natural experiments
    • The cinnamon roll recipe mentioned in the episode will be posted online for those interested in recreating it
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