Anyone watch Penn & Teller Bullshit?

[Heddi]

I do, only because I have Showtime as the only prime channel on my overpriced digital package. I will NOT pay $30 a month for HBO. WON"T DO IT!

Anyhoo....I'm hot and cold on the show. They are self admitted Libertarians and often use the Cato Institute as their "professional poll people" on the show. I don't agree with everything they say is "bullshit", but some of the things I find funny. Recently they had a show about Dolphins being Bullshit and I just died laughing. It was so ridiculous. People spending $1200 for a seminar to "get in touch with their inner Dolphin". gimme a break! I thought their show about Walmart was off the mark and that they ignored many well-known and researched negative issues with Walmart. INstead, they found one person who was in poverty, got a job at walmart, and now she, like, has a rental apartment and a car. THEREFORE, ERGO, walmart is good.

Whatever.

But overall I find their show entertaining. They are *very* skeptical and really do a great job of having the wackos that appear on their show OUT THEMSELVES of their wakiness. Like the lady on the recent show of Homeopathy who uses Lasers as therapy, but has no idea how the lasers work or anything. I think what she said was "Just because I use crystals to heal people doesn't mean that I have to know about the crystals I use".....

[mr blur]

1. Works for me -

[Heddi]

2. holy. fucking. shit

that is TOTALLY my new tattoo.

[Silent3]

12. When they did their episode on Global Warming...

...they didn't outright call GW bullshit, but they played up the "no one really knows if this isn't just a natural swing, and if humans have anything to do with it" angle. Based on what, I'd like to know. More Cato Institute research?

[Heddi]

14. They rely HEAVILY on the Cato Institute

which is very off putting.

[trotsky]

3. Used to.

Like you, we dropped HBO and picked up Showtime for awhile. But also like you, I got sick of the right-wing/libertarian slant on many issues. They were highly selective when investigating the items that they held dear, but opened the floodgates when talking about religion & traditional woo, so it was a lot of fun with those.

[WoodrowFan]

8. same here

have seen bits and pieces on Youtube. Soemtimes they strike me as being more contrarian than skeptical...

[progressoid]

4. Yeah, sometimes they lose their objectivity.

I think Penn lets his libertarian side take over his rational side sometimes.

I saw an epispode online a few years ago about recycling that went off base to me.

I haven't seen it for a couple years though.

[Dr. Strange]

5. I love watching it.

I don't have Showtime, so I have to resort to youtubeing it:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Penn+%26+Teller+bullshit&search_type=

[Evoman]

6. They were sort of hit or miss for me.

I watched a lot of their shows on the net. When they skewered woo stuff, it was great. Sometimes they were too libertarian to me...every now and then, I would disagree with them. However, being somewhat self-critical, I wondered if maybe they were right about these things and I was just being unobjective or biased about the topic (for example, the gun episode, the recycling episode, etc). It encouraged me to do some research, anyways, so it's not all bad.

[onager]

7. The Whorowitz episode almost ruined it for me

Full disclosure: I have all the first 3 seasons here in Egypt with me on DVD.

They started out great. Talking to the Dead, a funny and poignant episode. Designer Water, hilarious with folks in a chi-chi restaurant discovering their $5.00 water comes out of a garden hose. Religion, no comment needed.

And one of the best ever, the Nostradumbass episode. Oh, and Feng Shui-t. Where the hidden camera caught the expensive Feng Shui-t expert, AFTER he rearranged the room, saying: "It still looks like shit."

:rofl:

Then one night, I tuned in and they were pounding on the theme of "liberals own the colleges." Up popped their expert, that smarmy little Stalinist fuck David Whorowitz, with some bullshit statistic like "49% of college professors are liberal Democrats."

What I immediately noticed was they didn't provide any corresponding stats on the number of conservative Repubs working at, say, Pepperdine University or UC-Davis.

I could tolerate the occasional Libertarian slant, but that was WAY over the top. Nothing but pure right-wing propaganda.

Haven't watched since, but maybe I'll give it another shot.

[Pale Blue Dot]

9. The biggest problem I have with some in the skeptic's movement,

and this includes Penn & Teller, The South Park guys, and Michael Shermer, is that they seem to think that libertarianism is a natural extension of their skepticism. Just look at the website for Reason ("free minds and free markets!"), a skeptical, libertarian rag. In their mind, one should approach everything except libertarianism with skepticism and critical thinking.

[varkam]

10. Exactly.eom.

[realisticphish]

11. yeah

i guess everyone's allowed a little sacred cow, but that's a goddamned big sacred cow.

[Heddi]

13. I think you all have made good points

Last night I watched the DVR'd newest episode. It was about World Peace.

Someone made the comment that they went beyond being skeptical to just being contrary. That's exactly it, and one of the things that I don't like about them. Like the Walmart show, the World Peace one was just contrary for the sake of being "against" something that others are for. Their argument was basically "World peace is bullshit because there's always war, and there's nothing you can do about it so stop protesting"

For most things, and I do mean this sincerely, I hold my own personal viewpoint but generally am open minded to at least hearing someone's argument for the opposite. I might not buy it, and I might not believe it, but it's always interesting to hear someone put forth a GOOD argument. I suppose that's a leftover from my days in High School Debate.

As I think of it, I really can't think of a time that they made a stunningly good argument for any of their cases. Often I am amused because they skewer the things that I find annoying or fraudulent or whatever---shucksters, charlatans, etc, but I just can't get behind someone saying the ADA is bullshit because look at all the empty handicapped parking spaces at the mall as a sound and reasonable argument.

I think, though, that for many people, Showtime and this show may be their only experience with skeptical thought, even if it is more contrarian than skeptical, or Libertarian vs. reasoned argument. There really aren't that many shows that encourage people to question what we're told. Even if I agree with what we're being told, and they have propaganda-like disagreements with what we're being told (recycling, world peace), it encourages people to at least question what they hear, I guess...??

[WhollyHeretic]

15. That is in no way a skeptics show. They do take on some simple topics such as homeopathy, psychics

but for many episodes are simply looking for people and "facts" that back up there nutbag ideology. The ADA episode was pure unadulterated right wing garbage. They used the same ridiculous arguments that right wingers have always used against any social program.

They used Ted Nugent in their argument against PETA. Ted Nugent. That's a terrific way to validate your argument.

There recycling episode uses outdated studies with "facts" about recycling that may have been true 20 years ago but not now.

They used "facts" from the tobacco industry in their "debunking" of the dangers of second hand smoke.

http://skepdic.com/news/newsletter61.html#4

I enjoyed a couple clips I watched at first but will not sit through their crap anymore.

[Orrex]

16. I share that assessment

And it pisses me off, because I really wanted to like this show. Their chosen profession dubiously gives them automatic cred because James Randi, the archetypal skeptic and debunker, is himself an accomplished illusionist, so I was prejudiced in favor of Penn and Teller in hope that they would rally under the same banner. Also, they're masters of showmanship, so you'd expect it to be a dazzling program.

The reality, of course, is less dazzling, sadly. And it could be argued that they're actually damaging the skeptics' POV because they're billed as skeptics, even as their show cuts corners and makes questionable leaps in its debunking.

[beam me up scottie]

17. Another country heard from!

How are you, friend?

[WhollyHeretic]

18. I'll be much better in about 2 weeks.

I'm serving out the last 2 weeks of my sentence at my current job. I just got a new job last week. I've been working night hours in another state so my schedule is all screwed up.

How are things going with you?

[beam me up scottie]

19. Congratulations!

Meh, little Lyme disease here, little unemployment there, you know how it is. :)