Episode 103: Medical Hypotheses

It sounds like a good idea in theory: a non-peer-reviewed scientific journal dedicated to pure scientific creativity. Send in your craziest hypotheses and as long as they’re original ideas, the editor will publish them, and let them inspire the readers.

That’s the journal Medical Hypotheses—or, it was. In this episode we discuss some of the maddest papers they ever published, including the one about how wearing heeled shoes causes schizophrenia and an astonishing idea about why humans get acne, and then discuss how the whole thing went wrong.

Show notes

• “Withdrawn” 2009 Duesberg et al. paper on HIV-AIDS in South Africa

• Flensmark (2004) on heeled footwear and schizophrenia

  • Neuroskeptic’s 2019 investigation into Flensmark

  • Expressen interview with Flensmark (auto-translated)

• 2008 letter proposing ejaculation as a treatment for nasal congestion

• Notorious 2007 Down syndrome paper

  • Ben Goldacre’s piece on it

• Judith Rich Harris (2006) on parental selection and human hairlessness

• 2014 paper arguing van Gogh had acute porphyria

  • 2022 paper arguing van Gogh had vestibular migraine instead

• “Why do humans get acne? A hypothesis” (2020)

• 2024 paper on dummies/pacifiers and SIDS

• The original 2013 Brainspotting paper

  • 2024 Brainspotting debunking in the same journal

• “Medical Hypotheses RIP” from sacked editor Bruce Charlton

  • Charlton’s earlier piece on the journal’s philosophy

• 1991 paper on the inflammation–depression hypothesis

• 2004 paper on the mitochondrial hypothesis for Alzheimer’s

• 2005 gut microbiome/brain paper

• 2017 paper “On human parthenogenesis”

Credits

The Science Fictions podcast is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.