Why Patients Want Bad Medicines with Dr Micheal De Barra

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15th June 2021

The “event” has been an apparent boom time for all manner of quacks and quackery as otherwise seemingly reasonable people buy both their lies and their patent pending snake oil. To combat this apparently irrational behaviour we need to better understand why good people buy into bad medicine, and that’s where Dr Mícheál de Barra comes in.

Dr de Barra, a psychology lecturer at Brunel University London’s Centre for Culture and Evolution, has been researching harmful health behaviour and unnecessary treatments and thinks he’s figured a few things out with regard to the psychology that makes such treatments impossible for patients to verrify, apparently intuitive, and even of some communicative benefit, so let's see what he has to say.

Meanwhile, join Cambridge Skeptics: Live! at 7pm tonight when former achaeologist Erika will be guiding our discussion on pseudo-archaeology and ancient aliens on our YouTube channel. We're not saying it's going to be awesome, but...

Cambridge Skeptics

Why Patients Want Bad Medicines

with Dr Mícheál de Barra
Thursday, 17th June 2021 at 7:00pm

twitch.tv/sitp

For most of human history, an average patient meeting an average doctor was probably harmed rather than helped. This talk will explore how medical treatments can persist for decades – even centuries – despite having little or no beneficial effects. One focus will be on how features of biology and psychology make figuring out what works especially hard without tools like randomised controlled trials. I’ll also look at how features of human psychology can make some kinds of treatments intuitive, despite being useless or worse. Finally, I will examine if the benefits of treatments might lie not in what they do to your body, but in what they communicate to others about your need for care.

Mícheál de Barra is a lecturer in psychology in the Centre for Culture and Evolution, Brunel University London. His research focuses on unnecessary treatment and harmful health behaviours.

Useful Links:
micheal-debarra.squarespace.com
brunel.ac.uk/people/micheal-debarra

SEE ALSO

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When tragedy struck in Agnes' life, her interest in conspiracy theories grew, and gave her something to hold onto and believe in, writes Kang Le Yeo for The Skeptic.

The COVID-19 inquiry in Brazil is an opportunity to understand what went wrong and what can be learned - it is one we can't afford to pass up - writes Natália Pasternak for The Skeptic.

CATCH UP

Join SITP Online guest Dr Lindsey Osterman for a defence her field of evolutionary psychologist against misconceptions and misuses. This event, which was streamed live on 11th June 2021, is now available for catch up on the SitP Online YouTube channel.

Anthony Antonio's defence for storming the US Capitol is Fox News made him do it. Can media really influence us to this extent? Cambridge Skeptics: Live! discusses. This event, which was streamed live on 18th May 2021, is now available for catch up on our YouTube channel.

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