Apr 27 2011
Open Invitation to Dr. Oz
In follow up to my recent appearance on the Dr. Oz show, I am extending an open invitation to Dr. Oz to continue our conversation. He can either engage in a written exchange on science-based medicine, or he can appear as a guest on my podcast, the SGU.
You can read about my appearance on Dr. Oz where we discussed so called “alternative medicine,” here at NeuroLogica, and also Orac wrote a nice analysis as well. As you can see, while I was given a chance to make some points, Dr. Oz made many more points to which I was not given an opportunity to respond. He was able to frame and control the discussion in a way favorable to his point of view. And further there was far too little time to address the many issues that were raised.
If Dr. Oz is serious about addressing these issues, then let us continue the conversation in a longer and more balanced format.
24 Responses to “Open Invitation to Dr. Oz”
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I really hope that he takes you up on your offer. I’d love to listen to a more free-form interview, where everyone has plenty of time to respond!
I’d love to hear Dr Oz on SGU but I’m not going to hold my breath.
I would be pleasantly shocked if Dr. Oz would leave the safe controlled format of his own show for a free form podcast/satellite radio program. It would be interesting.
Hell will pop into existance – and then freeze over before Dr. Oz enters into a discussion with you in an environment he does not control.
I’m in awe of how well you handled this interview; you came across as honest, open, fair and informed. Good job!
By Dr. Oz’s own words,he has “put his reputation on the line” defending alternative medicine.He should be willing to come into the skeptic’s ‘lion’s den’ to defend his position and reputation.If he does,he will earn some goodwill for earnestness,even if he doesn’t concede anything to his skeptics.The ball’s in your court Dr. Oz.
A non-limited, uncut forum for discussion is a welcome chance for someone who is legitimately convinced that their standpoint is credible.
Then again, many skeptics love debate…What about the other lot?
Honestly, the best way to get him on sgu, would be the lot of us sending in emails to his dumb show and ask for an open forum of discussion. He’s an entertainer or a moth, he’ll fly to the glow of the spot light.
Dr Novella, you were way more patient and civil than I could have been in your position. It was frustrating just to watch, really. I guess you really mentally prepared for what you were getting yourself into. Mr Oz is too smart to not realize what he is doing, and I wonder how he justifies his spin and deception to himself.
He was constantly distorting your perspective, and I can’t imagine that they are accidental since they fit conveniently with the biases of his audience. (e.g. after you said the NIH has recently put billions into research of supplements and the studies demonstrated that they don’t work, he says “I totally disagree that these haven’t been studied…” Huh?)
Another perplexing perspective is his final plea that perhaps we aren’t able to see an effect from accupuncture because we don’t really know how it works or how it should be tested. Well if you don’t know how to best test it, how can you know how to use it?
I agree the time was too short. Just when an interesting (read: contentious) point was raised, the subject was changed. In the end, nothing really happened except Dr. Oz saying, “I disagree with you.”
It would be awesome if he was on SGU, but i’m not holding my breath.
I watched the video and I’d just like to say that I think you and your information came across much better than you’re giving yourself credit for. You really hammered away at him and challenged his claims well.
Excellent job.
If someone isn’t crazy busy, a transcript of the show would be helpful. We could color-code highlight the logical fallacies for fun.
Oh I forgot, you cannot put the laughter of a child or the beauty of the setting sun into the confines of so-called “logic.” Therefore you cannot call Dr. Oz on his BS, as his eyebrows are nicely groomed while yours are a little bushy.
@titmouse
Enjoy.
http://skepticarebear.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/transcript-novella-on-dr-oz-show/
It ceases to amaze me how pseudo-scientists like Dr. Oz can sit there and say that skeptics are afraid to talk about their favorite flavor of quackery, yet here we saw Dr. Novella on Dr. Oz’s show, and (thus far) a refusal of Dr. Oz (and other quacks) to appear on the SGU or other skeptic forums. It would appear they are the ones who are afraid, and frankly I find it very hypocritical.
I agree with ccbowers, I found the experience to be frustrating.I just wanted to shout at the TV. Still the benefit of exposure and possibly giving someone the” Haaaay Wait a minute” moment that some believers can get was worth it. That was the first and last Dr. Oz show I will ever watch. Going, “into the lion’s den” to use the metaphor, pretty gutsy.
I just sent the show an email encouraging Dr. Oz to accept Steve’s invitation, due to Phil Plait’s blog post over at Bad Astronomy. You can email the show here:
http://www.doctoroz.com/contact
Who will be the first to purchase the domain name “stopoz.com”. It’s inevitable, his snowball of woo is picking up speed and size while on it’s journey down the slippery sloap of mount non-sense. The root cause of all of this is the legislation and I think that is truely where the community should put the most effort (easier said than done, I know) If we can actually get some good legislation in place, then much of this stuff would hopefully get better, or at least, drive it underground. I’m not even sure what OZ would talk about if CAM was regulated the same as medicine.
I’d be cautious with this, as you risk coming across a bit “Neal Adams.” I think you’re right that the debate was framed and controlled in a very biased way in order to favour Oz’s point of view, but this can’t have been a surprise. My sense is that he’s not interested in actually discussing the issues; he wanted to have something to fill up an hour of time on his show. In fact, I don’t think he actually claimed to want to get to the bottom of whether these treatments work. His claim was that he wanted to hear about why some doctors are “afraid” of them.
Extending the invitation is one thing but having a campaign to push him to accept seems a bit over the top, because rather than being afraid I think he just doesn’t care. To his viewers, it will just seem like he invited you on the show, you said your piece, and now you’re nagging for a longer discussion because you don’t like how the first one went. I’m not saying I agree with this perspective, but it risks coming off that way.
tmac57
Thanks for the link I sent my email in tell all your friends.
Is it just me? All the links for the 3 segments on the Dr. Oz website run a commercial then tell me that the video is no longer available.
Is there somewhere else that I can watch them?
Ditto on the admiration related to how you handled yourself on that show. All I can say is please do more of that whenever you can. Your calm, confident, intelligent, and very controlled approach is excellent.
TeaHag, I think Dr. Novella is pretty confident that Dr. Oz won’t accept the invitation to be on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe.
And thanks for the link, tmac57. I added a Thank You note to the Dr. Oz show website:
“Thank you for having Dr. Steven Novella on the show. I never watched your show before but after hearing about the topic and guest, I recorded it and watched it with my family. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussions you had with Dr. Novella. Well, except for one aspect. I’d love to see more. I encourage you to take up Dr. Novella’s invitation to join him on the Skeptics Guide. If you won’t do that, then please invite him back to yours. Either way, I guarantee I’ll watch or listen.”
I didn’t see anyone mention how when doctor oz made a point they would flash to a close up of Steve’s face and he looked uptight, not smiling, which translates as- doctor oz just shut his argument down, which he didn’t. Sneaky editing.
In the (unlikely) event you haven’t seen it:
http://www.bolenreport.com/feature_articles/Doctor's-Data-v-Barrett/novellahumiliation.htm
I’m passing this along without comment, it doesn’t deserve one (oops).