"...and some rum....arrr..."

Hey, whatcha got against the demon rum??? With the right mix it is great stuff...

And what appears to be a kilt!!!

Actually, in academia, they don't even trust your credentials! No matter how many degrees you have, no matter what work you've done in the field before, a good journal is going to send your paper out for other experts to go over it with a fine toothed comb.



In the words of Ronald Regan, "Doveriai, no proveriai." ("Trust, but verify").

In the words of Dolly Parton, "Hire good people, then watch them like a hawk"...

JCWohlschlag: If I offended you by taking your quote out of context, I apologize. The point I was making by doing so was that many (including you), were asserting startling conclusions without supporting them. Now that your quote is copied here in its entirety, allow me to question yours in the same way you question mine (without supporting research).

"For one, if you're cold, (how cold? does it matter? I would certainly think the temperature we're talking about makes a big difference. Why not state it so we can check your research?)
a large majority of you're warm blood will be constricted to your core and head. (Really? What exactly is a 'large majority'? Certainly well over 50%, so you're saying that our bodies have the ability to re-distribute, what? 75% of our blood into our core and head? Does this cause extreme swelling of the head? Where does this warm blood then go? It must just re-circulate between the core and head, otherwise it will reach those cold extremities and cool down.)"

"...your hair increases your head’s surface area dramatically. (Are you seriously asserting that hair adds surface area to the head? I suppose it does, in the same way that fingernails add surface area to our hands or teeth add surface area to our mouth, come on...)

"...the wind will be blowing your hair around so much that it may actually start acting as a heatsink. (I'm not taking this out of context, anyone is free to read your quote above. Again, are you seriously saying hair acts as a heat sink? I suppose that's because of the dense concentration of blood flow that courses through our hair.)"

"These images normally show people in winter clothes as a dark colored body with a big, bright spot depicting their head. (Let's see...hmmm, these people are dressed up in their toasty winter parka's and insulated snow pants, now where in the world is the heat signature going to show up??? What? The head you say? I'm still not sure what your point is here, I hope you didn't seriously think that I'm trying to argue that only if we are naked does this 10% loss apply. That isn't what the original article or my later follow up points are saying at all. It seems like you focused on one small experiment and are trying to make it sound like the basis of my whole argument.)"

"The myth simply means, in all its glory, “Don’t forget your hat. (No, that's not the myth at all, the myth is that we lose 70% of our bodies heat through the scalp.)"

Sorry for the tone of this reply, It came out on paper (so to speak), harsher than I intended.

OBG,

I'm really dating myself with this one but, "The Five Chinese Brothers" was one of my favorite books in elementary school.



I guess you could say he's wearing a Kimono (or the male version of one).

Blackeagle,

"...a good journal is going to send your paper out for other experts to go over it with a fine toothed comb. "

Exactly! Am I wrong to assume that The Wilderness Medicine Newsletter didn't have their own experts go over the article before publishing it?

Verify, by all means verify. I hope you and others continue to follow this research and stay up-to-date, I know I intend to. If the 10% figure gets scientifically proven wrong, I'll be right back here with my tail between my legs eating humble pie and wearing 2 hats!

I've looked at their website, and I don't find any evidence that it's peer reviewed.

Listen...ask Dan Rather whether even large organizations such as the one he used to work for "go over" articles or not. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don;t. Other times they print or air it regardless of its authenticity.



No Lasd02, you won;t be back here eating humble pie. Look, you started a great thread, I think. You made some good points. The point here though, is that Doc Gordon says the heat loss through the head thing is a myth. It ain't. You will wear a hat in the winter as I'm confident you do now, so there is no need to say you'll "start" wearing one (or two) "if" you're proven wrong. Lasd02, the thing is, your sources don;t need to be discredited. You don;t need t be proven wrong! Your sources NEED to discredit empirical evidence. I ask again....how did Doc Gordon, et al< debunk the "myth"?

Say a man writes in the Scientific American that the earth is actually shaped like a triangle. Nobody needs to prove him wrong.... he's already known to be wrong! "He" is the one who has to prove his theory and, thusly, prove wrong what is already known. Is this still not making sense? I'm asking sincerely here, because I think maybe I'm not being clear.

I believe the important part is using it on an OPEN wound. You find every ER or OR in the US uses it ONLY before the cut someone open. It's great at killing microbes, yes, but stuff can survive it. And it damages the he!! out of your tissue. But, hey, if you want to take longer to heal cuz you decided to kill all the different cells that were starting to clean your wounds and fix them, go ahead.