From Jim Bawden:
Wasted: A Must-See NOT Documentary
Wasted is a top Nature Of Things documentary that puts a face on the compelling subject of alcohol addiction. You can catch it Thursday night at 8 on CBC-TV. Got that?
The hour begins with film maker Maureen Palmer’s profile of her partner Mike Pond who was a psychotherapist helping people with addiction in Penticton, British Columbia. And then he succumbed to alcoholism himself –living smack dab in wine country didn’t help needless to say. Continue reading.
This “documentary” was so full of misleading nonsense that I have fully lost respect for the Nature of Things as a scientific program. It was also, in my view, damaging and dangerous. Just one small example.: The subject of the film dismissively tosses three paper studies aside with criticisms like “No control group.” “Poor research design.” This left me wondering whether he even knows what those terms mean. Clearly, he did not like the findings in those studies. In a frame a few moments later, we see William Miller expressing a negative opinion about one of the forms of treatment that demonstrated superior outcomes in one of the discarded studies. This appeared like Dr. Miller was agreeing that the studies were poorly designed. In fact, Dr. Miller participated in the planning and data collection from the ground floor up in the very study being dismissed! He has even written in defence of the that particular study! Just one of many misleading and ridiculous moments in this program.