# Strange Claims from an Interesting Book **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [October 16, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339 "2022-10-16T19:52:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/1 "2022-10-16T19:52:19Z")
Reading an interesting book (Riveted) which makes some of the following claims. They generally have a single reference. 1. 92% of top selling songs since 2009 are about “reproduction”. I am sure this number has been high for decades. But 92%? 2. The placebo effect has been getting stronger with time. That is, the sugar pill you think is helping your issue is “stronger” or more effective than it used to be. Googling this led to some interesting articles. But much of this is from one study. 3. UFO sightings are down since most people started carrying phones with cameras. This makes sense, is obvious, and is probably one of many reasons, but I hadn’t seen it mentioned although I spend no time thinking about this. 4. It also raises the issue of why books no longer have preposterously long titles - such as the original full names for Origin of the Species or Mutiny on the Bounty. Short names are easier to digest and remember. But why were longer names so popular in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/2 "2022-10-16T19:55:30Z")
The author is Canadian Jim Davies. The interesting article on the placebo effect getting stronger I read is here. > **[Are Placebos Getting Stronger?](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-placebos-getting-stronger/)** > > A new study looked at clinical trials for neuropathic pain over the last 23 years and found that the response of subjects in the placebo group has been increasing over time, but only in the United Sta ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/3 "2022-10-16T19:57:30Z")
#3 has been mentioned here several times, though I don’t remember if there were citations. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/4 "2022-10-16T19:57:56Z")
Probably. I don’t read those kinds of threads. And it is kind of an obvious point. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/5 "2022-10-16T19:59:10Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > UFO sightings are down since most people started carrying phones with cameras Makes sense. The aliens probably have the technology to know where camera phones are and stay away. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/6 "2022-10-16T20:01:11Z")
They are probably not photopaque. And they just erase the images anyway. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/7 "2022-10-16T20:06:51Z")
The following is probably shtick > [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > UFO sightings are down since most people started carrying phones with cameras. This makes sense, is obvious, and is probably one of many reasons, but I hadn’t seen it mentioned although I spend no time thinking about this. Corellation is NOT causation. The Technocracy had many goals in giving Sleepers cell phones. One was to further calcify reality. When everybody has a camera, aliens cease to exist- because nobody believes in them anymore. The Revolution WILL be televised! Otherwise, it would not really exist. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/8 "2022-10-16T20:15:11Z")
> [@susan](#): > > #3 has been mentioned here several times, though I don’t remember if there were citations. Here’s a citation of sorts. XKCD [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/settled.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/settled.png) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/9 "2022-10-16T20:17:44Z")
See! I told you! ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/10 "2022-10-16T20:18:53Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > It also raises the issue of why books no longer have preposterously long titles - such as the original full names for Origin of the Species or Mutiny on the Bounty. Short names are easier to digest and remember. But why were longer names so popular in the first place? With this, I suspect that it’s the rise of both dust covers, and book reviewers. Dust covers make it easy to print a brief synopsis of the book, so a long descriptive title is less needed, and book reviewers do the same thing: if you’ve read a review in the newspaper, you have some idea of what the book was about. Consider this, “On the Origin of Species”. By itself, how much does it tell you about what the book is? These days, we’d probably assume it was a scientific book, but at the time, it most likely would have looked like a religious text - someone analysing Genesis to figure out when God created the platypus, or something. But the full title makes it more clear: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”. Now it’s more clearly science, and suggests a new theory of species beyond “God did it”. As for the UFOs claim, there’s this: [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/settled.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/settled.png) ETA: Damn you typing speed! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/11 "2022-10-16T21:50:17Z")
I don’t believe 1) even you use a ridiculously broad meaning of reproduction that includes any mention of people. As you say, 2) does seem to rely on a single study of studies from 2015. I’d really like to see an examination of studies post-COVID. Attitudes toward “expert” medicine appear to have changed, but some actual research would be nice. Skeptics have been loudly trumpeting 3) for twenty years. And 4) needs some explication. _Mutiny on the Bounty_ is the full title of the novel, hardly very long. Darwin’s book’s full title, however, was _On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life_. If by long titles, the author meant books that had an “or” in the middle, that was simply a fashion that stopped in the mid-19th century. I did a check on the topic in this thread from earlier this year. > [@Doubled book titles -or- when did book titles stop having "or" in them](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doubled-book-titles-or-when-did-book-titles-stop-having-or-in-them/964126/5): > > Just from observation, the practice pretty much ended at the end of the 19th century and lasted only on lesser books. A quick check tells me the only Dickens’ novel to have an “or” was Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy’s Progress, from 1841. None of Trollope’s books did or George Eliot’s, and they both wrote in 1850s. On the American side, Nathanial Hawthorne didn’t use “or” and he started in the 1850s (except for 1828’s Fanshawe and that also lacked an “or”). However, Harriet Beech Stowe used t… Those titles may seem long, by today’s standards, if you only look at novels. Nonfiction books still have them: they’re called subtitles. It’s almost mandatory on nonfiction. Here’s [Amazon’s nonfiction bestsellers list](https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Nonfiction/zgbs/digital-text/157325011) and you can see the subtitles on the covers. The “or” titles are actually a shortening of early book titles. [Take this 1810 one that was the first book on building a flying car](https://www.flyingcarsandfoodpills.com/flying-cars-first). The good reason behind putting all this text up front is that books didn’t come with dust jackets or blurbs or any explanatory material. Putting favorable exposition on the front page gave readers a sense of what the book contained. By a generation or so later, sufficient numbers of newspapers and magazines existed that reviewed books, so that potential buyers did not have to physically go to book shops or engage in extensive correspondence to know what was available in subjects of interest. Since then, titles are something that changes year to year. Book titling is part fashion and part doing whatever sold for the last book. Short titles are favored in our short attention span world, true, but that simply creates a backlash of books with longer titles just to stand out. @Horatius, I didn’t mean to copy you: I had a long interruption before I hit send and didn’t check for new posts. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/12 "2022-10-16T22:23:08Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I don’t believe 1) even you use a ridiculously broad meaning of reproduction that includes any mention of people. Without reading it, it seems pretty obvious that they’re including anything with a passing reference to sex, love, or various mating rituals. 92% would hardly be a shock. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/13 "2022-10-16T22:30:20Z")
Kids today are so absorbed with their phone screens, that they never notice when a UFO flies over, or Bigfoot walks past. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/14 "2022-10-16T22:35:08Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > The author is Canadian Jim Davies. > > The interesting article on the placebo effect getting stronger I read is here. > > [Are Placebos Getting Stronger? | Science-Based Medicine](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-placebos-getting-stronger/) Differences in placebo effects has been seen between countries. It’s no surprise that there is a cultural aspect to consider. The US approach to medicine is unique in a variety of ways. The placebo effect is not simply about sugar pills either. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/15 "2022-10-16T22:35:56Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Kids today are so absorbed with their phone screens, that they never notice when a UFO flies over, or Bigfoot walks past They should still appear in the background of their selfies, though. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/16 "2022-10-16T22:39:28Z")
Well, yes, but Bigfeet post their selfies on different social media sites than us short hairless folks. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/17 "2022-10-16T22:44:57Z")
Regarding long titles, at least two different authors independently came up with the name David Copperfield for their hero and book title. ([cite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPouuA0KMO4&t=32s)) But calling the novel _**The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)**_ removes any ambiguity. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/18 "2022-10-16T22:54:17Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > The placebo effect has been getting stronger with time. That is, the sugar pill you think is helping your issue is “stronger” or more effective than it used to be. Googling this led to some interesting articles. But much of this is from one study. Any time I see discussion about the placebo effect, I want to see a breakdown of the types of measurement used: are they using self report or labwork for instance. Self report is easily influenced by expectations, and thus should show placebo effect more strongly, while measuring someone like A1C is much less likely to be influenced by expectations. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/19 "2022-10-16T23:01:09Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > 1. The placebo effect has been getting stronger with time. That is, the sugar pill you think is helping your issue is “stronger” or more effective than it used to be. Googling this led to some interesting articles. But much of this is from one study. It’s risky to rely on one study, even if it’s well-conducted and an analysis of other research. The Science-Based Medicine article you linked to questions whether supposedly increasing placebo effects are artificially produced, relating to the way research involving placebos is conducted (implying that real-life experience may be different). “The new study provokes more questions than it answers, which is the sign of a good study. It is yet more evidence that placebo effects are complicated and are largely due to artifacts in the way clinical trials are designed and executed.” > [@](#): > > It also raises the issue of why books no longer have preposterously long titles - such as the original full names for Origin of the Species or Mutiny on the Bounty. Short names are easier to digest and remember. But why were longer names so popular in the first place? We have a lot more media competing for attention and shorter attention spans. Newspaper headlines also used to be considerably longer, especially if you count all the sub-heads that commonly ran down in a column before you got to the text. As to popular songs, most are about sex and relationships, so I suppose it could be claimed that the subject was “reproduction”. 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339/20 "2022-10-16T23:06:21Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > _Mutiny on the Bounty_ is the full title of the novel, hardly very long. _The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause and Consequences_, by Sir John Barrow [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-claims-from-an-interesting-book/973339.md?page=2)