Episode #1012

News Items

    Interview with Andrea Love

    • https://www.immunologic.org/

      Science or Fiction

      • Item #1 Science

        Although discredited in the late 18th century, mesmerism survived throughout the 19th century, giving rise to hypnosis and even psychology as an academic discipline.

      • Item #2 Science

        Hydropathy was the belief that water could cure most diseases, and involved wrapping patients in wet cloth, cold or hot baths, and drinking vast amounts of water. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/317225

      • Item #3 Fiction

        A popular movement applied phrenology to the arts of painting and sculpture as a method of understanding and representing the human form, and was a significant early influence of Picasso. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/features/phrenology-19th-century

      Skeptical Quote of the Week.

      ‘Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality.’ Paul Kurtz