Steven Novella

Professional background

Novella's academic specialization is in neurology, including more specifically, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), myasthenia gravis and neuromuscular disorders, neurophysiology, and the treatment of hyperactive neurological disorders.

Novella received his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1991, did a year of residency in internal medicine at Georgetown University Hospital/Washington Hospital Center, completed his residency in neurology at Yale–New Haven Hospital in 1995, and was board certified in neurology in 1998.

Growing up, Novella did not always want to be a physician. In an interview for the Books and Ideas podcast he said,

I think I entertained various career ideas. When I was growing up I thought about being a lawyer for a while and then by the time I went to college, I knew I wanted to go into a science background and I did premed in undergraduate school. So certainly by then I had decided that that’s probably what I wanted to do. So I would probably say in my late teens is when I really decided to go into medicine.

Regarding a career in medicine he said,

The good thing about medicine is that even late in the game there's lots of career paths open to you, even after your residency. After you're basically done with your training, you could decide to be basically clinical or to do mainly research or to even go into industry or to do public health.

Skepticism and critical thinking

Novella is a proponent of scientific skepticism. In response to an editorial in The New York Times in which Paul Davies concluded "until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus," Novella said,

It's not actually true because science is not dependent upon faith in a naturalistic world. It just follows the methods as if it is naturalistic... it is not a system of beliefs. People often ask me and they will ask you as skeptics what do you believe? Well, it's not about belief. Do you believe in ESP? It doesn't matter if I believe in ESP. The only thing that matters is what is the evidence for ESP? ...It's very important I think to present skepticism as a method of inquiry not a set of conclusions, not a set of beliefs.

In 1996 Novella, his brother Bob, and Perry DeAngelis founded The Connecticut Skeptical Society.

As Evan Bernstein tells it, "One night sometime in late 1995, Perry was over [at] Steve's condo, casually flipping through a copy of SI (Skeptical Inquirer). He was reading through the list of local groups, and commented to Steve: 'There's no local skeptics group in Connecticut. We should start one.'"

The group later joined with the Skeptical Inquirers of New England (SINE) and the New Hampshire Skeptical Resource to form the New England Skeptical Society (NESS). Novella currently serves as president of the NESS.

Paranormal investigations

In the early days of the New England Skeptical Society, Novella participated in investigations of various paranormal claims. Sometimes these were part of the screening process for the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Novella investigated such claims as Ouija boards (when the couple claiming they could operate one were properly blindfolded, their powers vanished), the ability to control the flipping of a coin (the claimant turned out to be making some common logical errors in thinking), a mind reader who got zero out of 20 correct, and many dowsers (typically found to be experiencing the Ideomotor phenomenon). Novella and the NESS also examined some phenomena described by people who were not competing for the One Million Dollar prize, such as haunted houses, the ability to communicate with the dead, and recording the voices of ghosts, known as electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP.

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

In May 2005, Novella started The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (SGU) podcast with his friends Perry DeAngelis and Evan Bernstein, and his brothers Bob and Jay. DeAngelis remained with the show until his death in August, 2007. In July 2006, Rebecca Watson joined the podcast as a regular, staying through December, 2014. Cara Santa Maria joined the cast in July, 2015.

Novella both hosts the show and does the editing and post-production. In an interview for the Books and Ideas podcast he said,

I am ultimately responsible for the content and prepping it and I do all the post production which I know, as you know is a lot of work. So you know, it's a good 20, 30 hours a week that I put into putting out this podcast, it is almost like having a second job. And, you know, it’s a labor of love.

When asked about the purpose of the podcast Novella said,

We deal primarily with controversial topics or topics on the fringe of science, although sometimes we do just straight up really interesting science news stories, whatever captures our interest. But we deal with the paranormal or conspiracy theories, or health fraud, consumer protection type of issues. And our goal is to give our listeners the tools to look at science in the news, science in society and have some way of navigating through all of the claims and all of the hype and basically have the tools to figure things out for themselves more than anything else.

Internet

In 2007, Novella started a blog, Neurologica, "your daily fix of neuroscience, skepticism and critical thinking", for which he writes three articles per week on a wide range of subjects generally related to science or skepticism. He is the executive editor of the blog Science-Based Medicine for which he is also a regular contributor, and he is a medical advisor to Quackwatch.

In 2008, Novella was one of the first 200 to sign the Project Steve petition, a tongue-in-cheek parody of the list of "scientists that doubt evolution" produced by creationists.

E-books

Novella is the editor of a series of e-books composed of articles collected from the Science-Based Medicine blog. Each book focuses mainly on one topic such as critical thinking, herbs, supplements and nutrition, chiropractic, vaccines, homeopathy, etc.

Print

Novella is an associate editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, and writes the monthly Weird Science column for the New Haven Advocate newspaper. Novella is also author to several Dungeons and Dragons campaign and expansion packs.

Television

Novella has appeared on several television programs, including Penn & Teller: Bullshit! s03e10: "Ghostbusters.", The Dr. Oz Show, and Inside Edition.

In 2008, he filmed a pilot for a television series called The Skeptologists along with Brian Dunning, Yau-Man Chan, Mark Edward, Michael Shermer, Phil Plait, and Kirsten Sanford. The series has not been picked up by any network.

The Dr. Oz Show appearance

Novella appeared on The Dr. Oz Show segment, "Controversial Medicine: Why your doctor is afraid of alternative health", where he was introduced as "an outspoken critic of alternative medicine." Novella noted that the term "alternative" creates a double-standard. "There should be one science-based common-sense standard to figure out what therapies work and are safe." Novella made the point that herbs are medicinals and have been used that way for thousands of years, but the problem is in re-branding them as alternative, marketing them as natural, and therefore arguing that they don't need evidence that they are safe and effective. "At the end of the day, the public was sold products that the evidence shows doesn't work."

On the subject of acupuncture, Novella stated, "I've spent a lot of time reviewing the acupuncture literature ... and the evidence overwhelmingly shows that acupuncture, in fact, doesn't work." In response to Dr. Oz's complaint that Novella is dismissive of an idea that the "way we think [about acupuncture] in the west is that it can't be possible effective." Novella replied, "I didn't say it couldn't possibly work, I said when you look at it, it doesn't work."

Autonomous sensory meridian response

Novella was the first scientist to publish and publicize an opinion and reflective evaluation of the phenomenon known as Autonomous sensory meridian response, a low grade euphoria characterized by 'a combination of positive feelings, relaxation, and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin', which typically begins 'on the scalp' before moving 'down the spine' to the base of the neck, sometimes spreading 'to the back, arms and legs as intensity increases', most commonly triggered by specific acoustic and visual stimuli including the content of some digital videos, and less commonly by intentional attentional control.

In a post on his blog Neurologica, Novella says that he always starts his investigations of such phenomena by asking whether or not 'it is real'. Regarding ASMR, Novella says 'in this case, I don't think there is a definitive answer, but I am inclined to believe that it is. There are a number of people who seem to have independently experienced and described' it with 'fairly specific details. In this way'…ASMR is similar to migraine headaches - we know they exist as a syndrome primarily because many different people report the same constellation of symptoms and natural history.' Novella tentatively posits the possibilities that ASMR might be either a type of pleasurable seizure, or another way to activate the 'pleasure response'. However, Novella draws attention to the lack of scientific investigation into ASMR, suggesting that functional magnetic resonance imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation technologies should be used to study the brains of people who experience ASMR in comparison to people who do not, as a way of beginning to seek scientific understanding and explanation of the phenomenon.

Other work

Novella has created two courses for The Great Courses, "Medical Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths: What We Think We Know May Be Hurting Us" and "Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills".

In 2009, Novella was the board chairman when the Institute for Science in Medicine was founded.

In January 2010, Novella was elected as a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

In 2011, Novella was appointed Senior Fellow of the James Randi Educational Foundation, and Director of their Science-Based medicine project.

Tobinick lawsuit

On June 9, 2014, Edward Tobinick filed a civil action in Florida Southern District Court naming Novella, Yale University, Society for Science-Based Medicine, Inc. and SGU Productions, LLC as defendants. The main allegations of the action are that "in violation of the Lanham Act, Novella has and continues to publish a false advertisement disparaging Plaintiffs entitled 'Enbrel for Stroke and Alzheimer's', ('the 'Advertisement') and implying that the INR plaintiffs' use of etanercept is ineffective and useless;" and "The Advertisement is extremely inflammatory and defamatory in nature as it contains multiple false and misleading statements of fact regarding Plaintiffs." "The Advertisement" referred to in the action is an entry for the Science-Based Medicine blog that Novella wrote and posted on May 8, 2013.

On July 14, 2014, Novella's attorney, Marc Randazza, filed an "Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for Temporary and Preliminary Injunctive Relief." The filing states that Tobinick is "highly unlikely to prevail in this matter . . . as Defendant's statements range from provably true to opinion," that a preliminary injunction "would impose an unlawful prior restraint of speech," and that "an injunction would result in far more harm to Defendants and the public than Plaintiffs' claimed injury."

On July 23, 2014, Novella posted a response to the lawsuit on Science-Based Medicine in which he said, "In my opinion he [Tobinick] is using legal thuggery in an attempt to intimidate me and silence my free speech because he finds its content inconvenient".

United States District Judge Robin Rosenberg ordered the case closed on September 30, 2015, and found in judgement for Novella. Tobinick was unable to show that Novella had profited from his blog post or that it was in anyway an advertisement. "... It is hereby ORDERED and ADJUDGED that defendant Dr. Steven Novella ... is GRANTED. All pending motions are DENIED AS MOOT, all deadlines are TERMINATED, and the Clerk of Court is directed to CLOSE THE CASE.

Adventure and role-playing games

Novella, along with some friends, owned a local live action role-playing (LARP) game for about 5 years. It was during this time that they wrote seven d20 books.

Novella has coauthored several adventure gaming books including Twin Crowns, a naval and travel expansion for Dungeons & Dragons and Broadsides!, a role-playing game (RPG) based on the d20 system. Novella also coauthored Spellbound: A Codex of Ritual Magic, which features "a complete system of magic suitable for any campaign setting" using the d20 system.

Awards

Topics of interest

Novella often writes and speaks about a variety of topics in areas of alternative medicine, the new age movement, parapsychology, and pseudoscience. As a proponent of scientific skepticism, his writings generally address supporting evidence and scientific consensus. Topics addressed in his writings include: