Is Sports A Breeding Ground For Pseudoscience? - Livestream

Success and failure in sport are distinguished by increasingly smaller margins. In their pursuit of performance, athletes and coaches have become ever more experimental, leaving no stone unturned. But blunted critical faculties and lax consumer regulations have created a sporting culture where pseudoscience can thrive; thousands of products and services flood the market, all claiming to improve performance or promote recovery. Some are underpinned by rigorous science, most are not. The problem is exacerbated by pervasive social media which exploits flaws in human cognition, offers disproportionate influence to anti-science ideologies, and facilitates the spread of mis- and disinformation. What are the implications of this unregulated commercialist culture? And what are the possible solutions? In this talk, Dr. Nick Tiller (Harbor-UCLA) reframes the sporting world through the critical lens of science. From chiropractic to cryotherapy, sports shoes to supplements, Tiller scrutinizes some of sport’s most popular products and practices, offering a treatise on how skepticism (not cynicism) can reform sport and exercise and possibly save the world.

Speaker: Nicholas Tiller, Harbor-UCLA

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