
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
First Ben and Celestia discuss the LA fires (and a few of the many, many conspiracy theories already cropping up), and remember Jimmy Carter's clear-headed skepticism and humanitarianism. Then, since it's January and we're all trying to work on self-improvement, we talk about BMI -- which happens to be in the news this week for what turns out to be not really news. The Body Mass Index began almost two hundred years ago as a pet project by a Belgian statistician, but has evolved into one of the most accessible health metrics around. The average American can assess their BMI at home, for free, with the only inconvenience being having to use the metric system. Many of the criticisms of BMI as a tool are what Ben categorizes as straw man attacks, and he explains how doctors and public health officials use the metric. Along the way, we see many parallels with how people fail to think skeptically (or understand how metrics work) and end up losing faith in medical science on a greater scale.
4.8
8686 ratings
First Ben and Celestia discuss the LA fires (and a few of the many, many conspiracy theories already cropping up), and remember Jimmy Carter's clear-headed skepticism and humanitarianism. Then, since it's January and we're all trying to work on self-improvement, we talk about BMI -- which happens to be in the news this week for what turns out to be not really news. The Body Mass Index began almost two hundred years ago as a pet project by a Belgian statistician, but has evolved into one of the most accessible health metrics around. The average American can assess their BMI at home, for free, with the only inconvenience being having to use the metric system. Many of the criticisms of BMI as a tool are what Ben categorizes as straw man attacks, and he explains how doctors and public health officials use the metric. Along the way, we see many parallels with how people fail to think skeptically (or understand how metrics work) and end up losing faith in medical science on a greater scale.
943 Listeners
6,179 Listeners
2,646 Listeners
113 Listeners
1,118 Listeners
418 Listeners
4,926 Listeners
4,009 Listeners
1,883 Listeners
3,191 Listeners
949 Listeners
1,978 Listeners
12 Listeners
2,630 Listeners
631 Listeners