Professor Regan...

[Arch]

If you're looking for something to watch tonight at 9pm:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k2lt2

Give Professor Regan a try. I saw the first one last week, thought it was good. A bit like Bad Science, she debunks some of the claims behind 'scientifically proven' things like diet pills. Not hysterical, or foot-in-the-door confrontation, just basic facts. A bit of fancy graphics, but not too much. I also like the fact that she's a normal looking and sounding woman, not some dolly-bird or Anne Robinson style harriden....

 

[NickM]

I suppose it's inevitable that the programme makers saw fit to use the "Professor" handle. Amazing how up themselves most professors are, in my experience. One who really did qualify told me that plenty of them are fools. Another who just scraped in told me that it was a title for life - he obviously believed this, as he stopped doing anything as soon as he got it. A third claims the title in Britain, despite being a mere visiting professor to a university in Nairobi. Purest vanity - his colleagues in Glasgow regard him as a laughing stock, I am reliably informed...

 

[Arch]

Grumpy.

This lady appears to be well deserving of her title anyway. if she is one, why not use it? (Although many PhDs don't, esp when booking airline tickets, for fear of a stewardess coming to them and saying "we see you are a doctor, there's a man in first class not feeling well...." My colleagues wouldn't be interested in him until he'd been dead a couple of hundred years... Or was a fish.)

So, anyway, got anything positive to add, on topic, or not?

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

Grumpy.

This lady appears to be well deserving of her title anyway. if she is one, why not use it? (Although many PhDs don't, esp when booking airline tickets, for fear of a stewardess coming to them and saying "we see you are a doctor, there's a man in first class not feeling well...." My colleagues wouldn't be interested in him until he'd been dead a couple of hundred years... Or was a fish.)

So, anyway, got anything positive to add, on topic, or not?

Do I have to be a dead fish?

 

[NickM]

Grumpy.

Where professors are concerned, you bet.

So, anyway, got anything positive to add, on topic, or not?

Nope. Can't think of anything positive to say about academic hubris*. The bastards seldom seem to get their well-deserved comeuppance.







*this one may be an exception, for all I know, but since I don't have a telly I won't ever find out

 

[summerdays]

I watched last weeks one ... where they pointed out that exercise was one of the proven (in scientific papers type proven) ways to lose weight, and will watch this one. She has been on before too, but I can't remember what those programs were about.

 

[marinyork]

I didn't watch the programme but I don't think she should give homeopathy the time of day. The blurb about the programme sounds quite interesting, talking about self testing kits and health checks is a very positive thing to do.

 

[Fab Foodie]

My old pal and fellow Biochem student, Alice was the Mayo expert in the food and diet episode. For real trivia, I was the first person to work in that pilot-plant when it was built! Happy daze, we were both a lot younger and thinner back then (1985) too

 

[summerdays]

I didn't watch the programme but I don't think she should give homeopathy the time of day. The blurb about the programme sounds quite interesting, talking about self testing kits and health checks is a very positive thing to do.

She looked at homoeopathy and said that the medical evidence didn't back it up. That the things that it seemed to work for were those which placebo's worked for. For example she gave some insomniac's some tablets to take to see if her homoeopathic remedy worked ... they reported good sleep for the first two nights of the trial. She told them they were taking cake decorations - those silver balls.

Although she also did a test comparing generic and branded pain killers. The test she did found that when the rugby players could stand more pain after taking the branded ones than the generic. Except that she had given them the branded ones both times. So she said the branded ones may for some have an extra placebo benifit.

She wasn't positive about the health testing kits as they had the "this doesn't replace the GP disclaimer on them". But in those she might be ignoring the fact that some people may be more reluctant about going to see the GP in the first place. And the one where you could test your DNA for all sorts of things I felt she ignored the fact you should have counsiling perhaps both before and after receiving those kind of results.

 

[NickM]

Oooh, ooh - I'm off to get some silver balls

Thanks for the tip!

 

[summerdays]

I didn't want her to tell them... if it works for them through belief then it still works - though maybe only for a short time.

The other thing about the program... they taked about cold remedies and one guy said it wasn't really worth spending loads of money on when a hot blackcurrant drink or TOODY would also work.... yeah a scientific program actually said my way is good..... (made sure Mr Summerdays saw that bit)

 

[User169]

I suppose it's inevitable that the programme makers saw fit to use the "Professor" handle. Amazing how up themselves most professors are, in my experience. One who really did qualify told me that plenty of them are fools. Another who just scraped in told me that it was a title for life - he obviously believed this, as he stopped doing anything as soon as he got it. A third claims the title in Britain, despite being a mere visiting professor to a university in Nairobi. Purest vanity - his colleagues in Glasgow regard him as a laughing stock, I am reliably informed...

It does seem that the BBC feels that the "Prof" handle confers some kind of legitimacy. It's the typical BBC approach to science though - let's do a program on testing health claims for various medicaments and then get an obstetrician to present it. It's not clear at all what specific expertise Prof Regan has in any relevant field.

Evidently, the BBC does find her glamour quotient significant. At it says...

"Professor Lesley Regan, one of the UK's most well-respected (and glamorous) medical experts, turns her scientific eye on the world of cosmetics."

You're right though; every bugger these days seems to be a prof. Far better to be an FRS I'd have thought.

 

[NickM]

And another thing!

Why do so many British academics (who one must assume are reasonably well educated people) insist on saying "ree-search" when what they mean is research?

 

[Canrider]

You've probably imported too many 'murricans (and a few Canadians mixed in).

I enjoy doing ree-search.

edit: Shall we ask the Indian research community, given that they likely represent the largest population of English-speakers on the planet?

 

[Maz]

And another thing!

Why do so many British academics (who one must assume are reasonably well educated people) insist on saying "ree-search" when what they mean is research?

The former is a noun, the latter a verb.