https://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Jay+One&feedformat=atomSGUTranscripts - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T01:02:47ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.35.13https://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1925X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T21:11:50Z<p>Jay One: /* WiFi */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=104 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-02-22.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,40583.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== WiFi ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU five by five and in this episode we’re talking about Wi-Fi fear mongering. Is there a risk to your health from being bathed in the electromagnetic waves being produced by all of the electronic devices, specifically Wi-Fi devices, cell phones, et cetera, that are now ubiquitous in our technological civilisation.<br />
<br />
R: This is becoming a more and more common issue as a lot of people are claiming to have allergies, for instance, to Wi-Fi, they say that they experience a huge spectrum of symptoms. They range from rashes to dizziness, to headaches, to nausea. They attribute these symptoms to Wi-Fi thought they don’t seem to necessarily have any science to back them up.<br />
<br />
S: In fact when studied under controlled situations where they do not know whether or not they are being exposed to electromagnetic fields or Wi-Fi, they cannot tell. They will have symptoms when the device is off, for example, and not have symptoms when it’s on, there does not seem to be any correlation in blinded studies, that’s always the key. When you blind studies, is the effect still there? And the overwhelming answer in the literature is no.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I mean, when you quantify what’s actually taking place, the interesting thing that I found was that, for example, microwaves put out 800-1000 watts of energy, radar puts out about 10-100 kW, and Wi-Fi puts out about 0.01 watts, so there’s no mechanism to show how there’s any real biological damage being done by the radiation.<br />
<br />
E: That doesn’t stop organizations such as the World Health Organization from making claims such as Wi-Fi is possibly a carcinogen, and they’re classifying it in the same category as substances like lead or DDT.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you know, it’s ironic for the WHO, it’s an interesting organization, the World Health Organization, they obviously do a lot of good work, but then they come out with some difficult to understand policy statements or recommendations. Sometimes you think it’s political, or you wonder who they got to review the evidence. The WHO also interestingly reviewed 25,000 articles that were published in the last 30 years, and they concluded that the research does not show evidence to confirm the existence of any health consequences from the exposure to low level electromagnetic fields. So they seem now, despite the fact that there is a lack of evidence for any biological harm from electromagnetic fields, they’re taking the precautionary principle to say, “Well, we can’t completely rule out an effect”, you know, there’s a difference between saying “there’s no evidence for an effect”, and “there’s evidence for a lack of an effect”. It’s a continuum or a spectrum, you can never get to the point of view where there’s a zero per cent chance of an effect, so it all depends on how you are going to employ the precautionary principle, and that’s not so much a scientific question as a political, sociological question, a judgment call. I think that’s where the WHO gets into trouble; not in reviewing the science, which shows no evidence that there’s any risk in Wi-Fi.<br />
<br />
B: And now spurned on by this latest statement from the WHO, an Ontario teachers’ union is being very vocal about calling for an end to any new Wi-Fi setups in school, and they’ve actually had some success in this. Some Canadian private schools, and I believe one public school, have actually removed or at the very least severely limited Wi-Fi due to these non-existent safety concerns. One problem I had with this was the entire government actually addressed this issue, and from what I can tell, all they’ve really said is, “Well, we’re going to look at this warning that the WHO has released”, and that they’re not going to actually require any labels or warning on wireless devices, but they leave it up to the school boards to make up their own mind, but I think if they actually took some time and actually looked at the signs and the evidence it could have offered a much more authoritative statement on the non-existence of this issue.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they essentially punted, which is better than buying into it, buying into pressure to ban Wi-Fi in schools. Think about that, schools need access to the internet and computers now more than ever to teach a generation how to survive in the information age, and they’re going to ban wireless computers in schools? That’s crazy, and based upon a fear that is not based upon evidence? Canada may have more of a problem with this issue than other countries because there’s one researcher that is really pushing this idea of so-called “dirty electricity” or the health effects of Wi-Fi; Dr. Magda Havas. She’s Canadian, and she is the go-to expert, if you will, for that point of view, that low-level electromagnetic fields have a lot of health concerns, and unfortunately she works the media very well, and they do go to her to represent that point of view. So I think that Canada is perhaps suffering from her being a Canadian living in that country, although this issue does crop up in other countries as well, like Sweden for example there was an issue of environmentalists backing and individual who claims that electromagnetic fields cause health problems and they were recommending that electromagnetic devices were being banned in a wide area. No cell phones, you know, and the consequences there could be dire for the population. So, like in any similar situation, we have to calmly follow the scientific evidence, this is a widely studied area, it’s not like there aren’t any studies. Again, the World Health Organization reviewed 25,000 articles relevant to this question, published in the last 30 years, so we do have a fairly high degree of confidence that there isn’t any risk to electromagnetic fields. If there is, it’s got to be very, very tiny, otherwise we would have picked up on it by now with the research that has been done. So while we can’t say zero, we can set very significant limits on how much of a risk it could be, and I think the word negligible is probably appropriate.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1915X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T21:10:27Z<p>Jay One: /* WiFi */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=104 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-02-22.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,40583.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== WiFi ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
<br />
S: This Is the SGU five by five and in this episode we’re talking about Wi-Fi fear mongering. Is there a risk to your health from being bathed in the electromagnetic waves being produced by all of the electronic devices, specifically Wi-Fi devices, cell phones, et cetera, that are now ubiquitous in our technological civilisation.<br />
<br />
R: This is becoming a more and more common issue as a lot of people are claiming to have allergies, for instance, to Wi-Fi, they say that they experience a huge spectrum of symptoms. They range from rashes to dizziness, to headaches, to nausea. They attribute these symptoms to Wi-Fi thought they don’t seem to necessarily have any science to back them up.<br />
<br />
S: In fact when studied under controlled situations where they do not know whether or not they are being exposed to electromagnetic fields or Wi-Fi, they cannot tell. They will have symptoms when the device is off, for example, and not have symptoms when it’s on, there does not seem to be any correlation in blinded studies, that’s always the key. When you blind studies, is the effect still there? And the overwhelming answer in the literature is no.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I mean, when you quantify what’s actually taking place, the interesting thing that I found was that, for example, microwaves put out 800-1000 watts of energy, radar puts out about 10-100 kW, and Wi-Fi puts out about 0.01 watts, so there’s no mechanism to show how there’s any real biological damage being done by the radiation.<br />
<br />
E: That doesn’t stop organizations such as the World Health Organization from making claims such as Wi-Fi is possibly a carcinogen, and they’re classifying it in the same category as substances like lead or DDT.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you know, it’s ironic for the WHO, it’s an interesting organization, the World Health Organization, they obviously do a lot of good work, but then they come out with some difficult to understand policy statements or recommendations. Sometimes you think it’s political, or you wonder who they got to review the evidence. The WHO also interestingly reviewed 25,000 articles that were published in the last 30 years, and they concluded that the research does not show evidence to confirm the existence of any health consequences from the exposure to low level electromagnetic fields. So they seem now, despite the fact that there is a lack of evidence for any biological harm from electromagnetic fields, they’re taking the precautionary principle to say, “Well, we can’t completely rule out an effect”, you know, there’s a difference between saying “there’s no evidence for an effect”, and “there’s evidence for a lack of an effect”. It’s a continuum or a spectrum, you can never get to the point of view where there’s a zero per cent chance of an effect, so it all depends on how you are going to employ the precautionary principle, and that’s not so much a scientific question as a political, sociological question, a judgment call. I think that’s where the WHO gets into trouble; not in reviewing the science, which shows no evidence that there’s any risk in Wi-Fi.<br />
<br />
B: And now spurned on by this latest statement from the WHO, an Ontario teachers’ union is being very vocal about calling for an end to any new Wi-Fi setups in school, and they’ve actually had some success in this. Some Canadian private schools, and I believe one public school, have actually removed or at the very least severely limited Wi-Fi due to these non-existent safety concerns. One problem I had with this was the entire government actually addressed this issue, and from what I can tell, all they’ve really said is, “Well, we’re going to look at this warning that the WHO has released”, and that they’re not going to actually require any labels or warning on wireless devices, but they leave it up to the school boards to make up their own mind, but I think if they actually took some time and actually looked at the signs and the evidence it could have offered a much more authoritative statement on the non-existence of this issue.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they essentially punted, which is better than buying into it, buying into pressure to ban Wi-Fi in schools. Think about that, schools need access to the internet and computers now more than ever to teach a generation how to survive in the information age, and they’re going to ban wireless computers in schools? That’s crazy, and based upon a fear that is not based upon evidence? Canada may have more of a problem with this issue than other countries because there’s one researcher that is really pushing this idea of so-called “dirty electricity” or the health effects of Wi-Fi; Dr. Magda Havas. She’s Canadian, and she is the go-to expert, if you will, for that point of view, that low-level electromagnetic fields have a lot of health concerns, and unfortunately she works the media very well, and they do go to her to represent that point of view. So I think that Canada is perhaps suffering from her being a Canadian living in that country, although this issue does crop up in other countries as well, like Sweden for example there was an issue of environmentalists backing and individual who claims that electromagnetic fields cause health problems and they were recommending that electromagnetic devices were being banned in a wide area. No cell phones, you know, and the consequences there could be dire for the population. So, like in any similar situation, we have to calmly follow the scientific evidence, this is a widely studied area, it’s not like there aren’t any studies. Again, the World Health Organization reviewed 25,000 articles relevant to this question, published in the last 30 years, so we do have a fairly high degree of confidence that there isn’t any risk to electromagnetic fields. If there is, it’s got to be very, very tiny, otherwise we would have picked up on it by now with the research that has been done. So while we can’t say zero, we can set very significant limits on how much of a risk it could be, and I think the word negligible is probably appropriate.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGUTranscripts:Community_portal&diff=190SGUTranscripts:Community portal2012-04-18T21:02:28Z<p>Jay One: </p>
<hr />
<div>Hi guys like others I've often thought about this as a project but put off by the amount of time that it would have taken one person, the main reason I thought about doing this was to be able to search the transcripts when needed, example: if someone asked me a question on Homoeopathy I would be able to use my smartphone to give an answer based on what the SGU have talked about in the past, as I generally take what the guys say as fact.<br />
<br />
Do you think that what I'm taking about would be possible using this WIKI project??<br />
<br />
Looking forward to starting and completing my first SGU Transcript :-)<br />
<br />
--[[User:Manontop|Manontop]] 09:31, 16 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Hi Manontop.<br />
:<br />
:Sure, I think that would be one of the most important uses of these transcripts. My ideas for having transcripts of the SGU episodes are to facilitate linking, searching and accessibility:<br />
:<br />
:* Linking. We have headings throughout the podcasts so that it's possible to link directly to a specific segment, for example [[SGU_Episode_352#Aristolochia_Nephropathy|Aristolochia Nephropathy]] (internal wiki link) or [http://www.sgutranscripts.org/wiki/SGU_Episode_352#Aristolochia_Nephropathy Aristolochia Nephropathy] (external link).<br />
:* Searching. Currently there are (at least) two ways to search. Either using Google or the built-in search box in the top right. If you want to use Google to search only this site, you can do so by using the "site:" term in your query. E.g. your Google query would be [https://www.google.com/search?q=site:sgutranscripts.org+titanic+disaster "site:sgutranscripts.org titanic disaster"]. Google is the king of them all, so I have installed proper semantic web (SEO) support. When a transcript is completed I go through and insert tags to important concepts that are covered in the podcast. This helps Google (and other search engines) know what is important about that page. You can see these by opening a transcript and viewing the source of the page. Then look for the <meta name="keywords" content="..."> tag. There are two components to this, tags that are site-wide such as "skeptics, sceptics, scepticism" etc. followed by tags that are local to a particular page such as "titanic, tragedy, ss, californian, space, junk" etc. Of course, Google also uses the page content when indexing.<br />
:* Accessibility. Quite simple really; people who can't listen to the podcast for any reason (deafness etc.) can now read the transcripts instead.<br />
:<br />
:Great to have you on board! :)<br />
:<br />
:--[[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] 11:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Hi guys,<br />
<br />
I'm guessing this is the best place to put project discussions, let me know if there's another way - I'm new to Wiki editing.<br />
<br />
Regarding time stamps for the sections, I've entered them into the headings of [[SGU_Episode_348]] using < small > tags. This shows them smaller in the actual headings, but the same size in the contents list.<br />
What do you guys think?<br />
<br />
I've also been thinking of ways to make these transcript pages as useful as poss without causing ourselves too much extra work. One way might be to include a kind of bullet-point list of facts from the episode, as they often have throw-away comments that are interesting. E.g. in ep.348, they talk about nut allergies, and that cashew nuts contain the same allergy-inducing resin as poison-ivy. We could lift these from the main text as we go and build a list at the end. It wouldn't make much difference if someone's reading the whole transcript, but it might make a nice feature for flicking through them.<br />
Just a thought, I figured it would be better said earlier than later. What do you think?<br />
<br>Cheers,<br />
<br />
--[[User:Teleuteskitty|Teleuteskitty]] 04:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I like the idea of compiling a fact list at the end of the transcription for each episode. It's just up to the individual transcriber I suppose. Regarding the < small > tags, I definitely think it would help to have the timestamps in these transcriptions, and having it in the section title makes it visible in the table of contents. The other option is to use the wikibox on your user page, which I think is very nice, containing the image, quote, times and links in one place. It just depends on whether or not other people like it too.<br />
:--[[User:Jay One|Jay One]] 20:11, 17 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::Thanks, I have no experience making wikibox templates, so if someone else knows more about these, mb they'd like to build one? (although I'm happy to try) we should probably come to some agreement about whether we want them and what they should contain.<br />
::--[[User:Teleuteskitty|Teleuteskitty]] 20:31, 17 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Regarding a template, I've put up what I was working from for full episodes at [[Episode_templateTK]] for now, but this isn't a proper wiki template - I'm not entirely sure how to use those. I don't presume to ''dictate'' the format, this is just what I had already. <br>Feedback welcomed. <br />
<br>--[[User:Teleuteskitty|Teleuteskitty]] 00:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I'd like to help, but I ''cannot'' tell Jay and Bob's voices apart. Am I useless?<br />
<br>--[[User:Jenpohl|Jenpohl]] 20:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I often find this difficult, and it's quite likely I've already made mistakes based on this, but mb you'll get better as you're listening closely. I find Bob more nasal. Another good indicator is whether they're referencing nanotechnology or porn. :)<br />
:--[[User:Teleuteskitty|Teleuteskitty]] 21:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
:That may be a problem, but all it took for me to tell their voices apart was a little time.<br />
:--[[User:Jay One|Jay One]] 21:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1885X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T20:58:06Z<p>Jay One: /* WiFi */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=104 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-02-22.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,40583.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== WiFi ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
5x5 Episode 104 - WiFi<br />
<br />
5x5 Episode 104 - WiFi<br />
<br />
S: This Is the SGU five by five and in this episode we’re talking about Wi-Fi fear mongering. Is there a risk to your health from being bathed in the electromagnetic waves being produced by all of the electronic devices, specifically Wi-Fi devices, cell phones, et cetera, that are now ubiquitous in our technological civilisation.<br />
<br />
R: This is becoming a more and more common issue as a lot of people are claiming to have allergies, for instance, to Wi-Fi, they say that they experience a huge spectrum of symptoms. They range from rashes to dizziness, to headaches, to nausea. They attribute these symptoms to Wi-Fi thought they don’t seem to necessarily have any science to back them up.<br />
<br />
S: In fact when studied under controlled situations where they do not know whether or not they are being exposed to electromagnetic fields or Wi-Fi, they cannot tell. They will have symptoms when the device is off, for example, and not have symptoms when it’s on, there does not seem to be any correlation in blinded studies, that’s always the key. When you blind studies, is the effect still there? And the overwhelming answer in the literature is no.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I mean, when you quantify what’s actually taking place, the interesting thing that I found was that, for example, microwaves put out 800-1000 watts of energy, radar puts out about 10-100 kW, and Wi-Fi puts out about 0.01 watts, so there’s no mechanism to show how there’s any real biological damage being done by the radiation.<br />
<br />
E: That doesn’t stop organizations such as the World Health Organization from making claims such as Wi-Fi is possibly a carcinogen, and they’re classifying it in the same category as substances like lead or DDT.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you know, it’s ironic for the WHO, it’s an interesting organization, the World Health Organization, they obviously do a lot of good work, but then they come out with some difficult to understand policy statements or recommendations. Sometimes you think it’s political, or you wonder who they got to review the evidence. The WHO also interestingly reviewed 25,000 articles that were published in the last 30 years, and they concluded that the research does not show evidence to confirm the existence of any health consequences from the exposure to low level electromagnetic fields. So they seem now, despite the fact that there is a lack of evidence for any biological harm from electromagnetic fields, they’re taking the precautionary principle to say, “Well, we can’t completely rule out an effect”, you know, there’s a difference between saying “there’s no evidence for an effect”, and “there’s evidence for a lack of an effect”. It’s a continuum or a spectrum, you can never get to the point of view where there’s a zero per cent chance of an effect, so it all depends on how you are going to employ the precautionary principle, and that’s not so much a scientific question as a political, sociological question, a judgment call. I think that’s where the WHO gets into trouble; not in reviewing the science, which shows no evidence that there’s any risk in Wi-Fi.<br />
<br />
B: And now spurned on by this latest statement from the WHO, an Ontario teachers’ union is being very vocal about calling for an end to any new Wi-Fi setups in school, and they’ve actually had some success in this. Some Canadian private schools, and I believe one public school, have actually removed or at the very least severely limited Wi-Fi due to these non-existent safety concerns. One problem I had with this was the entire government actually addressed this issue, and from what I can tell, all they’ve really said is, “Well, we’re going to look at this warning that the WHO has released”, and that they’re not going to actually require any labels or warning on wireless devices, but they leave it up to the school boards to make up their own mind, but I think if they actually took some time and actually looked at the signs and the evidence it could have offered a much more authoritative statement on the non-existence of this issue.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they essentially punted, which is better than buying into it, buying into pressure to ban Wi-Fi in schools. Think about that, schools need access to the internet and computers now more than ever to teach a generation how to survive in the information age, and they’re going to ban wireless computers in schools? That’s crazy, and based upon a fear that is not based upon evidence? Canada may have more of a problem with this issue than other countries because there’s one researcher that is really pushing this idea of so-called “dirty electricity” or the health effects of Wi-Fi; Dr. Magda Havas. She’s Canadian, and she is the go-to expert, if you will, for that point of view, that low-level electromagnetic fields have a lot of health concerns, and unfortunately she works the media very well, and they do go to her to represent that point of view. So I think that Canada is perhaps suffering from her being a Canadian living in that country, although this issue does crop up in other countries as well, like Sweden for example there was an issue of environmentalists backing and individual who claims that electromagnetic fields cause health problems and they were recommending that electromagnetic devices were being banned in a wide area. No cell phones, you know, and the consequences there could be dire for the population. So, like in any similar situation, we have to calmly follow the scientific evidence, this is a widely studied area, it’s not like there aren’t any studies. Again, the World Health Organization reviewed 25,000 articles relevant to this question, published in the last 30 years, so we do have a fairly high degree of confidence that there isn’t any risk to electromagnetic fields. If there is, it’s got to be very, very tiny, otherwise we would have picked up on it by now with the research that has been done. So while we can’t say zero, we can set very significant limits on how much of a risk it could be, and I think the word negligible is probably appropriate.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1875X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T20:56:53Z<p>Jay One: /* WiFi */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=104 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-02-22.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,40583.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== WiFi ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
5x5 Episode 104 - WiFi<br />
<br />
5x5 Episode 104 - WiFi<br />
<br />
S: This Is the SGU five by five and in this episode we’re talking about Wi-Fi fear mongering. Is there a risk to your health from being bathed in the electromagnetic waves being produced by all of the electronic devices, specifically Wi-Fi devices, cell phones, et cetera, that are now ubiquitous in our technological civilisation.<br />
R: This is becoming a more and more common issue as a lot of people are claiming to have allergies, for instance, to Wi-Fi, they say that they experience a huge spectrum of symptoms. They range from rashes to dizziness, to headaches, to nausea. They attribute these symptoms to Wi-Fi thought they don’t seem to necessarily have any science to back them up.<br />
S: In fact when studied under controlled situations where they do not know whether or not they are being exposed to electromagnetic fields or Wi-Fi, they cannot tell. They will have symptoms when the device is off, for example, and not have symptoms when it’s on, there does not seem to be any correlation in blinded studies, that’s always the key. When you blind studies, is the effect still there? And the overwhelming answer in the literature is no.<br />
J: Yeah, I mean, when you quantify what’s actually taking place, the interesting thing that I found was that, for example, microwaves put out 800-1000 watts of energy, radar puts out about 10-100 kW, and Wi-Fi puts out about 0.01 watts, so there’s no mechanism to show how there’s any real biological damage being done by the radiation.<br />
E: That doesn’t stop organizations such as the World Health Organization from making claims such as Wi-Fi is possibly a carcinogen, and they’re classifying it in the same category as substances like lead or DDT.<br />
S: Yeah, you know, it’s ironic for the WHO, it’s an interesting organization, the World Health Organization, they obviously do a lot of good work, but then they come out with some difficult to understand policy statements or recommendations. Sometimes you think it’s political, or you wonder who they got to review the evidence. The WHO also interestingly reviewed 25,000 articles that were published in the last 30 years, and they concluded that the research does not show evidence to confirm the existence of any health consequences from the exposure to low level electromagnetic fields. So they seem now, despite the fact that there is a lack of evidence for any biological harm from electromagnetic fields, they’re taking the precautionary principle to say, “Well, we can’t completely rule out an effect”, you know, there’s a difference between saying “there’s no evidence for an effect”, and “there’s evidence for a lack of an effect”. It’s a continuum or a spectrum, you can never get to the point of view where there’s a zero per cent chance of an effect, so it all depends on how you are going to employ the precautionary principle, and that’s not so much a scientific question as a political, sociological question, a judgment call. I think that’s where the WHO gets into trouble; not in reviewing the science, which shows no evidence that there’s any risk in Wi-Fi.<br />
B: And now spurned on by this latest statement from the WHO, an Ontario teachers’ union is being very vocal about calling for an end to any new Wi-Fi setups in school, and they’ve actually had some success in this. Some Canadian private schools, and I believe one public school, have actually removed or at the very least severely limited Wi-Fi due to these non-existent safety concerns. One problem I had with this was the entire government actually addressed this issue, and from what I can tell, all they’ve really said is, “Well, we’re going to look at this warning that the WHO has released”, and that they’re not going to actually require any labels or warning on wireless devices, but they leave it up to the school boards to make up their own mind, but I think if they actually took some time and actually looked at the signs and the evidence it could have offered a much more authoritative statement on the non-existence of this issue.<br />
S: Yeah, they essentially punted, which is better than buying into it, buying into pressure to ban Wi-Fi in schools. Think about that, schools need access to the internet and computers now more than ever to teach a generation how to survive in the information age, and they’re going to ban wireless computers in schools? That’s crazy, and based upon a fear that is not based upon evidence? Canada may have more of a problem with this issue than other countries because there’s one researcher that is really pushing this idea of so-called “dirty electricity” or the health effects of Wi-Fi; Dr. Magda Havas. She’s Canadian, and she is the go-to expert, if you will, for that point of view, that low-level electromagnetic fields have a lot of health concerns, and unfortunately she works the media very well, and they do go to her to represent that point of view. So I think that Canada is perhaps suffering from her being a Canadian living in that country, although this issue does crop up in other countries as well, like Sweden for example there was an issue of environmentalists backing and individual who claims that electromagnetic fields cause health problems and they were recommending that electromagnetic devices were being banned in a wide area. No cell phones, you know, and the consequences there could be dire for the population. So, like in any similar situation, we have to calmly follow the scientific evidence, this is a widely studied area, it’s not like there aren’t any studies. Again, the World Health Organization reviewed 25,000 articles relevant to this question, published in the last 30 years, so we do have a fairly high degree of confidence that there isn’t any risk to electromagnetic fields. If there is, it’s got to be very, very tiny, otherwise we would have picked up on it by now with the research that has been done. So while we can’t say zero, we can set very significant limits on how much of a risk it could be, and I think the word negligible is probably appropriate.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1865X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T20:54:32Z<p>Jay One: /* WiFi */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=104 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-02-22.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,40583.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== WiFi ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
5x5 Episode 104 - WiFi<br />
<br />
S: This Is the SGU five by five and in this episode we’re talking about Wi-Fi fear mongering. Is there a risk to your health from being bathed in the electromagnetic waves being produced by all of the electronic devices, specifically Wi-Fi devices, cell phones, et cetera, that are now ubiquitous in our technological civilisation.<br />
R: This is becoming a more and more common issue as a lot of people are claiming to have allergies, for instance, to Wi-Fi, they say that they experience a huge spectrum of symptoms. They range from rashes to dizziness, to headaches, to nausea. They attribute these symptoms to Wi-Fi thought they don’t seem to necessarily have any science to back them up.<br />
S: In fact when studied under controlled situations where they do not know whether or not they are being exposed to electromagnetic fields or Wi-Fi, they cannot tell. They will have symptoms when the device is off, for example, and not have symptoms when it’s on, there does not seem to be any correlation in blinded studies, that’s always the key. When you blind studies, is the effect still there? And the overwhelming answer in the literature is no.<br />
J: Yeah, I mean, when you quantify what’s actually taking place, the interesting thing that I found was that, for example, microwaves put out 800-1000 watts of energy, radar puts out about 10-100 kW, and Wi-Fi puts out about 0.01 watts, so there’s no mechanism to show how there’s any real biological damage being done by the radiation.<br />
E: That doesn’t stop organizations such as the World Health Organization from making claims such as Wi-Fi is possibly a carcinogen, and they’re classifying it in the same category as substances like lead or DDT.<br />
S: Yeah, you know, it’s ironic for the WHO, it’s an interesting organization, the World Health Organization, they obviously do a lot of good work, but then they come out with some difficult to understand policy statements or recommendations. Sometimes you think it’s political, or you wonder who they got to review the evidence. The WHO also interestingly reviewed 25,000 articles that were published in the last 30 years, and they concluded that the research does not show evidence to confirm the existence of any health consequences from the exposure to low level electromagnetic fields. So they seem now, despite the fact that there is a lack of evidence for any biological harm from electromagnetic fields, they’re taking the precautionary principle to say, “Well, we can’t completely rule out an effect”, you know, there’s a difference between saying “there’s no evidence for an effect”, and “there’s evidence for a lack of an effect”. It’s a continuum or a spectrum, you can never get to the point of view where there’s a zero per cent chance of an effect, so it all depends on how you are going to employ the precautionary principle, and that’s not so much a scientific question as a political, sociological question, a judgment call. I think that’s where the WHO gets into trouble; not in reviewing the science, which shows no evidence that there’s any risk in Wi-Fi.<br />
B: And now spurned on by this latest statement from the WHO, an Ontario teachers’ union is being very vocal about calling for an end to any new Wi-Fi setups in school, and they’ve actually had some success in this. Some Canadian private schools, and I believe one public school, have actually removed or at the very least severely limited Wi-Fi due to these non-existent safety concerns. One problem I had with this was the entire government actually addressed this issue, and from what I can tell, all they’ve really said is, “Well, we’re going to look at this warning that the WHO has released”, and that they’re not going to actually require any labels or warning on wireless devices, but they leave it up to the school boards to make up their own mind, but I think if they actually took some time and actually looked at the signs and the evidence it could have offered a much more authoritative statement on the non-existence of this issue.<br />
S: Yeah, they essentially punted, which is better than buying into it, buying into pressure to ban Wi-Fi in schools. Think about that, schools need access to the internet and computers now more than ever to teach a generation how to survive in the information age, and they’re going to ban wireless computers in schools? That’s crazy. And based upon a fear that is not based upon evidence? Canada may have more of a problem with this issue than other countries because there’s one researcher that is really pushing this idea of so-called “dirty electricity” or the health effects of Wi-Fi; Dr. Magda Havas. She’s Canadian, and she is the go-to expert, if you will, for that point of view, that low-level [unintelligible] a lot of health concerns, and unfortunately she works the media very well, and they do go to her to represent that point of view. So I think that Canada is perhaps suffering from her being a Canadian living in that country, although this issue does crop up in other countries as well, like Sweden for example there was an issue of environmentalists backing and individual who claims that electromagnetic fields cause health problems and they were recommending that electromagnetic devices were being banned in a wide area. No cell phones, you know, and the consequences there could be dire for the population. So, like in any similar situation, we have to calmly follow the scientific evidence, this is a widely studied area, it’s not like there aren’t any studies. Again, the World Health Organization reviewed 25,000 articles relevant to this question, published in the last 30 years, so we do have a fairly high degree of confidence that there isn’t any risk to electromagnetic fields. If there is, it’s got to be very, very tiny, otherwise we would have picked up on it by now with the research that has been done. So while we can’t say zero, we can set very significant limits on how much of a risk it could be, and I think the word negligible is probably appropriate.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1815X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T17:44:15Z<p>Jay One: /* Celebrity Pseudoscience */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=104 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-02-22.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,40583.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== WiFi ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
<br />
<br />
Work in progress.<br />
<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1795X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T16:55:27Z<p>Jay One: /* Celebrity Pseudoscience */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=104 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-02-22.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,40583.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Celebrity Pseudoscience ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
<br />
<br />
Work in progress.<br />
<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1785X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T16:55:09Z<p>Jay One: </p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=104 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-02-22.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,40583.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Celebrity Pseudoscience ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5x5template&diff=1775x5template2012-04-18T16:48:36Z<p>Jay One: Created page with "== links == * [ Show Notes] * [ Download Podcast] * [ Forum Topic] == Skeptical Rogues == * S: Steven Novella * E: Evan Bernstein * J: Jay Novella * R: Rebecca Watson * B: B..."</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [ Show Notes]<br />
* [ Download Podcast]<br />
* [ Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Celebrity Pseudoscience ==<br />
<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with [http://skepchick.org skepchick.org]. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at [http://www.theskepticsguide.org www.theskepticsguide.org]. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_104&diff=1765X5 Episode 1042012-04-18T16:44:17Z<p>Jay One: Created page with "In progress."</p>
<hr />
<div>In progress.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=175Main Page2012-04-18T16:44:07Z<p>Jay One: /* 2012 */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Welcome ==<br />
<br />
Welcome to SGU Transcripts. We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!<br />
<br />
My method of transcription is to use [http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ VLC media player], and dial down the speed until I can type comfortably. A quick alt-tab, then shift-left a couple of times will skip back a few seconds if you missed something. After a spell check, the transcript gets pasted into the wiki. Then add some headings, bullets, hyperlinks and times. That's it!<br />
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If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, sign up and then add a page for it and put in a note to say that you're working on it. That way we can hopefully avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.<br />
<br />
== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]<br />
<br />
=== 2012 === <br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_352]], Apr 14 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_351]], Apr 7 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_350]], Mar 31 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_348]], Mar 17 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_347]], Mar 10 2012 (incomplete)<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_338]], Jan 7 2012<br />
<br />
=== 2006 ===<br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_31]], Feb 22 2006 (incomplete)<br />
<br />
=== 2005 ===<br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_1]], May 4 2005<br />
<br />
== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]<br />
<br />
=== 2012 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi<br />
<br />
=== 2009 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy <br />
* [[5X5_Episode_53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis<br />
<br />
=== 2008 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism<br />
<br />
== Getting started ==<br />
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<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU five by five and tonight we're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. This is a logical fallacy that takes the form of assuming or claiming that something is better, superior in some way, because it is "natural". There are many problems with this line of reasoning. One is that it's very difficult to define what one means by the word natural. There's no real operational definition or sharp line of demarcation between what is natural and what is not natural. But more importantly just because, for example, a remedy is perceived as being natural that does not mean that it is magically safe and effective. Often the naturalistic fallacy is used instead of evidence, actual evidence, for safety and efficacy. This is rife, for example, in the herbal remedies market. Herbs are often thought of as being something other than drugs simply because they're "natural". Ignoring the fact that that's completely irrelevant, if an herb is taken it contains chemicals - that's a drug - herbs are in fact often used as drugs, the fact that they are considered to be natural is completely irrelevant to the chemicals that they contain and their action inside the body, and that is, I think, an excellent example of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
B: The naturalistic fallacy has two fundamental aspects to it. There's the appeal to nature that Steve just mentioned; natural things are fundamentally good, and unnatural things aren't. Related to this appeal to nature is the act of deriving and 'ought' from an 'is' This means that the premise of your argument describes what 'is', but the conclusion unfairly uses that to determine what 'ought' to be. A classic example is:<br />
# All men are mortal.<br />
# Socrates is a man.<br />
# Therefore Socrates is a philosopher.<br />
A reasonable argument can not add something entirely new in their argument, which is what essentially is being done when committing a naturalistic fallacy. There's no mention of philosophers in the premise, how then can a conclusion be derived about them. Philosopher David Hume first discussed this 'is-ought' fallacy back in the 1700s. He described a logical gap between 'is' statements and 'ought' statements. How do you connect descriptions of what 'is' - something that science is great at - with descriptions of what 'ought to be' - something best handled by ethics and aesthetics. This is not impossible to accomplish, but it has to be done carefully with a well thought out, reasoned and supported argument, something sorely lacking in most abusers of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
E: The argument that there's some sort of intrinsic virtue in things that are natural appears to a certain set of senses inside of us. So, we might picture in our mind this utopian nature scene with no human embellishments or infections, just the trees and the fields, the streams and the lakes, insects and birds, wild animals, wild flowers, and they all live in some sense of balance and harmony, so this is nature, right? Well what possible malignancies could there possibly be in such a paradise? Well, how about arsenic, for example. Arsenic is a naturally occurring chemical, when ingested by people it's a deadly poison, and it can be found in foods such as apricot pits, peach pits, apple seeds and cherry seed also contain certain amounts of cyanide, and in fact arsenic contamination of groundwater is a problem that affect millions of people across the world, but, it's all natural. And how about kidney beans or lima beans? If you consume as few as five of these uncooked beans, poisonous effects can being to occur. Some other natural toxins include certain varieties of algae, the algae is eaten by bottom feeding shellfish, and then we eat the shellfish, which people around the world make part of their regular diet. There are mycotoxins, which are toxins derived from mushrooms, and they infect plants and flowers and legumes, nuts, vegetables, you name it, practically anything we consume in nature, the mushrooms have an effect on. Venom from snakes, spiders, scorpions, are natural, oh and for the bee-string therapists out there? Honey bee stings release hormones that prompt other nearby bees to come along for the attack, ouch, and we can't forget out friend Naegleria fowleri, which is an amoeba which attacks the body through the nasal cavity, and it eats its way up to the brain, and these are naturally occurring organisms that thrive in ponds and other still bodies of water where people like to go swimming, say, on a hot summer day. Or, if you want to get really hardcore, let's come up with something called Uranium Therapy for people. You know, uranium is just about as natural as anything else on the planet, and it was Randi who succinctly encapsulated this aspect of the naturalistic fallacy, as only Randi can when he once said, "Bird shit and gravel are natural, but I won't eat them".<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, basically, most stuff out there in nature is poisonous to some degree. I would not advise going out into the woods and eating a random plant. Chances are you're going to get an upset stomach at best, and may be ingesting a deadly poison at worst.<br />
<br />
R: And of course, the naturalistic fallacy isn't just used for things that we ingest and alternative medicine, things like that. It's also often used in the case of arguing against certain social concerns like homosexuality. One common argument is that homosexuality is not natural and therefore it is wrong. This of course ignores the fact that there are plenty of animals that do engage in some kind of homosexual behaviour. For instant, humans live in high rises, and no other animal does. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad or evil, and so it is with homosexuality.<br />
<br />
J: I took this at a different angle, I wanted to talk about when people use the naturalistic fallacy in conversation and what they talk about and some of the mistakes that they make. So, you'll quite commonly hear people say that, "if it's natural, it's good." I hear this with the people I talk to at work all the time, "it's natural, it's natural", comes up in conversations. The fallacies commonly cited reason why people don't eat something like zero calorie sugar substitute like Splenda or Equal, and I think you'd be surprised if you take a look at what those two products are made out of, how not dangerous they are. As a quick example, Splenda is made out of sucralose and is absolutely not dangerous at normal quantities, just like everything else. You could find the term "all natural" on food products, herbal remedies, even cleaning chemicals, and "all natural" is a nebulous term, but most people think it means it that it's naturally occurring, or non-processed, created by nature, The fact is, and I think a lot of people would be surprised to find out, is that most of our fruits, vegetables and farm animals have been selectively bred for flavour and yield size for thousands of years, and I always bring this one up when discussing the naturalistic fallacy with people that I'm talking to, typically at work, and I question you guys, is something still natural is mankind has selectively bred it to become something else? What's the difference between natural selection versus man-made selection.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean that's a good point that I started out with, that is, that "natural" is a vague term, it doesn't really have any clear definition and therefore it's very difficult to apply in any kind of rational sense, but even if we did have a workable definition such as, "occurring in nature", why would something that occurs in nature be more likely to be safe and effective or to be non-toxic to humans. Nature doesn't care about us, we're just one species of ten million, there's no particular reason why something that is natural would not be harmful to us. In fact, some plants and animals specifically evolved things to be toxic to us, so it really fails at every level, but it is I think a testimony to, I think, the unbelievably effective marketing strategy and propaganda that is almost taken as a given in our culture that something that is natural is better, despite the fact that there is simply no logic behind that at all.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to The Skeptics' Guide to the Univese, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with skepchick.org. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGUTranscripts:Community_portal&diff=159SGUTranscripts:Community portal2012-04-17T20:14:03Z<p>Jay One: </p>
<hr />
<div>Hi guys like others I've often thought about this as a project but put off by the amount of time that it would have taken one person, the main reason I thought about doing this was to be able to search the transcripts when needed, example: if someone asked me a question on Homoeopathy I would be able to use my smartphone to give an answer based on what the SGU have talked about in the past, as I generally take what the guys say as fact.<br />
<br />
Do you think that what I'm taking about would be possible using this WIKI project??<br />
<br />
Looking forward to starting and completing my first SGU Transcript :-)<br />
<br />
--[[User:Manontop|Manontop]] 09:31, 16 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Hi Manontop.<br />
:<br />
:Sure, I think that would be one of the most important uses of these transcripts. My ideas for having transcripts of the SGU episodes are to facilitate linking, searching and accessibility:<br />
:<br />
:* Linking. We have headings throughout the podcasts so that it's possible to link directly to a specific segment, for example [[SGU_Episode_352#Aristolochia_Nephropathy|Aristolochia Nephropathy]] (internal wiki link) or [http://www.sgutranscripts.org/wiki/SGU_Episode_352#Aristolochia_Nephropathy Aristolochia Nephropathy] (external link).<br />
:* Searching. Currently there are (at least) two ways to search. Either using Google or the built-in search box in the top right. If you want to use Google to search only this site, you can do so by using the "site:" term in your query. E.g. your Google query would be [https://www.google.com/search?q=site:sgutranscripts.org+titanic+disaster "site:sgutranscripts.org titanic disaster"]. Google is the king of them all, so I have installed proper semantic web (SEO) support. When a transcript is completed I go through and insert tags to important concepts that are covered in the podcast. This helps Google (and other search engines) know what is important about that page. You can see these by opening a transcript and viewing the source of the page. Then look for the <meta name="keywords" content="..."> tag. There are two components to this, tags that are site-wide such as "skeptics, sceptics, scepticism" etc. followed by tags that are local to a particular page such as "titanic, tragedy, ss, californian, space, junk" etc. Of course, Google also uses the page content when indexing.<br />
:* Accessibility. Quite simple really; people who can't listen to the podcast for any reason (deafness etc.) can now read the transcripts instead.<br />
:<br />
:Great to have you on board! :)<br />
:<br />
:--[[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] 11:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Hi guys,<br />
<br />
I'm guessing this is the best place to put project discussions, let me know if there's another way - I'm new to Wiki editing.<br />
<br />
Regarding time stamps for the sections, I've entered them into the headings of [[SGU_Episode_348]] using < small > tags. This shows them smaller in the actual headings, but the same size in the contents list.<br />
What do you guys think?<br />
<br />
I've also been thinking of ways to make these transcript pages as useful as poss without causing ourselves too much extra work. One way might be to include a kind of bullet-point list of facts from the episode, as they often have throw-away comments that are interesting. E.g. in ep.348, they talk about nut allergies, and that cashew nuts contain the same allergy-inducing resin as poison-ivy. We could lift these from the main text as we go and build a list at the end. It wouldn't make much difference if someone's reading the whole transcript, but it might make a nice feature for flicking through them.<br />
Just a thought, I figured it would be better said earlier than later. What do you think?<br />
Cheers,<br />
<br />
--[[User:Teleuteskitty|Teleuteskitty]] 04:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I like the idea of compiling a fact list at the end of the transcription for each episode. It's just up to the individual transcriber I suppose. Regarding the < small > tags, I definitely think it would help to have the timestamps in these transcriptions, and having it in the section title makes it visible in the table of contents. The other option is to use the wikibox on your user page, which I think is very nice, containing the image, quote, times and links in one place. It just depends on whether or not other people like it too.<br />
:--[[User:Jay One|Jay One]] 20:11, 17 April 2012 (UTC)</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGUTranscripts:Community_portal&diff=158SGUTranscripts:Community portal2012-04-17T20:11:34Z<p>Jay One: </p>
<hr />
<div>Hi guys like others I've often thought about this as a project but put off by the amount of time that it would have taken one person, the main reason I thought about doing this was to be able to search the transcripts when needed, example: if someone asked me a question on Homoeopathy I would be able to use my smartphone to give an answer based on what the SGU have talked about in the past, as I generally take what the guys say as fact.<br />
<br />
Do you think that what I'm taking about would be possible using this WIKI project??<br />
<br />
Looking forward to starting and completing my first SGU Transcript :-)<br />
<br />
--[[User:Manontop|Manontop]] 09:31, 16 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Hi Manontop.<br />
:<br />
:Sure, I think that would be one of the most important uses of these transcripts. My ideas for having transcripts of the SGU episodes are to facilitate linking, searching and accessibility:<br />
:<br />
:* Linking. We have headings throughout the podcasts so that it's possible to link directly to a specific segment, for example [[SGU_Episode_352#Aristolochia_Nephropathy|Aristolochia Nephropathy]] (internal wiki link) or [http://www.sgutranscripts.org/wiki/SGU_Episode_352#Aristolochia_Nephropathy Aristolochia Nephropathy] (external link).<br />
:* Searching. Currently there are (at least) two ways to search. Either using Google or the built-in search box in the top right. If you want to use Google to search only this site, you can do so by using the "site:" term in your query. E.g. your Google query would be [https://www.google.com/search?q=site:sgutranscripts.org+titanic+disaster "site:sgutranscripts.org titanic disaster"]. Google is the king of them all, so I have installed proper semantic web (SEO) support. When a transcript is completed I go through and insert tags to important concepts that are covered in the podcast. This helps Google (and other search engines) know what is important about that page. You can see these by opening a transcript and viewing the source of the page. Then look for the <meta name="keywords" content="..."> tag. There are two components to this, tags that are site-wide such as "skeptics, sceptics, scepticism" etc. followed by tags that are local to a particular page such as "titanic, tragedy, ss, californian, space, junk" etc. Of course, Google also uses the page content when indexing.<br />
:* Accessibility. Quite simple really; people who can't listen to the podcast for any reason (deafness etc.) can now read the transcripts instead.<br />
:<br />
:Great to have you on board! :)<br />
:<br />
:--[[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] 11:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Hi guys,<br />
<br />
I'm guessing this is the best place to put project discussions, let me know if there's another way - I'm new to Wiki editing.<br />
<br />
Regarding time stamps for the sections, I've entered them into the headings of [[SGU_Episode_348]] using < small > tags. This shows them smaller in the actual headings, but the same size in the contents list.<br />
What do you guys think?<br />
<br />
I've also been thinking of ways to make these transcript pages as useful as poss without causing ourselves too much extra work. One way might be to include a kind of bullet-point list of facts from the episode, as they often have throw-away comments that are interesting. E.g. in ep.348, they talk about nut allergies, and that cashew nuts contain the same allergy-inducing resin as poison-ivy. We could lift these from the main text as we go and build a list at the end. It wouldn't make much difference if someone's reading the whole transcript, but it might make a nice feature for flicking through them.<br />
Just a thought, I figured it would be better said earlier than later. What do you think?<br />
Cheers,<br />
<br />
--[[User:Teleuteskitty|Teleuteskitty]] 04:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I like the idea of compiling a fact list at the end of the transcription for each episode. It's just up to the individual transcriber I suppose. Regarding the < small > tags, I definitely think it would help to have the timestamps in these transcriptions, and having it in the section title makes it visible in the table of contents.<br />
:--[[User:Jay One|Jay One]] 20:11, 17 April 2012 (UTC)</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=155Main Page2012-04-17T19:52:20Z<p>Jay One: /* 2012 */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Welcome ==<br />
<br />
Welcome to SGU Transcripts. We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!<br />
<br />
My method of transcription is to use [http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ VLC media player], and dial down the speed until I can type comfortably. A quick alt-tab, then shift-left a couple of times will skip back a few seconds if you missed something. After a spell check, the transcript gets pasted into the wiki. Then add some headings, bullets, hyperlinks and times. That's it!<br />
<br />
If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, sign up and then add a page for it and put in a note to say that you're working on it. That way we can hopefully avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.<br />
<br />
== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]<br />
<br />
=== 2012 === <br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_352]], Apr 14 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_351]], Apr 7 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_350]], Mar 31 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_348]], Mar 17 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_338]], Jan 07, 2012 (incomplete)<br />
<br />
=== 2006 ===<br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_31]], Feb 22 2006 (incomplete)<br />
<br />
=== 2005 ===<br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_1]], May 4 2005<br />
<br />
== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]<br />
<br />
=== 2012 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic<br />
<br />
=== 2009 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well (incomplete)<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy <br />
* [[5X5_Episode_53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis<br />
<br />
=== 2008 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism<br />
<br />
== Getting started ==<br />
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.<br />
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]<br />
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]<br />
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1545X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T19:46:23Z<p>Jay One: /* Naturalistic Fallacy */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU five by five and tonight we're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. This is a logical fallacy that takes the form of assuming or claiming that something is better, superior in some way, because it is "natural". There are many problems with this line of reasoning. One is that it's very difficult to define what one means by the word natural. There's no real operational definition or sharp line of demarcation between what is natural and what is not natural. But more importantly just because, for example, a remedy is perceived as being natural that does not mean that it is magically safe and effective. Often the naturalistic fallacy is used instead of evidence, actual evidence, for safety and efficacy. This is rife, for example, in the herbal remedies market. Herbs are often thought of as being something other than drugs simply because they're "natural". Ignoring the fact that that's completely irrelevant, if an herb is taken it contains chemicals - that's a drug - herbs are in fact often used as drugs, the fact that they are considered to be natural is completely irrelevant to the chemicals that they contain and their action inside the body, and that is, I think, an excellent example of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
B: The naturalistic fallacy has two fundamental aspects to it. There's the appeal to nature that Steve just mentioned; natural things are fundamentally good, and unnatural things aren't. Related to this appeal to nature is the act of deriving and 'ought' from an 'is' This means that the premise of your argument describes what 'is', but the conclusion unfairly uses that to determine what 'ought' to be. A classic example is:<br />
# One All men are mortal.<br />
# Two Socrates is a man.<br />
# Three Therefore Socrates is a philosopher.<br />
A reasonable argument can not add something entirely new in their argument, which is what essentially is being done when committing a naturalistic fallacy. There's no mention of philosophers in the premise, how then can a conclusion be derived about them. Philosopher David Hume first discussed this 'is-ought' fallacy back in the 1700s. He described a logical gap between 'is' statements and 'ought' statements. How do you connect descriptions of what 'is' - something that science is great at - with descriptions of what 'ought to be' - something best handled by ethics and aesthetics. This is not impossible to accomplish, but it has to be done carefully with a well thought out, reasoned and supported argument, something sorely lacking in most abusers of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
E: The argument that there's some sort of intrinsic virtue in things that are natural appears to a certain set of senses inside of us. So, we might picture in our mind this utopian nature scene with no human embellishments or infections, just the trees and the fields, the streams and the lakes, insects and birds, wild animals, wild flowers, and they all live in some sense of balance and harmony, so this is nature, right? Well what possible malignancies could there possibly be in such a paradise? Well, how about arsenic, for example. Arsenic is a naturally occurring chemical, when ingested by people it's a deadly poison, and it can be found in foods such as apricot pits, peach pits, apple seeds and cherry seed also contain certain amounts of cyanide, and in fact arsenic contamination of groundwater is a problem that affect millions of people across the world, but, it's all natural. And how about kidney beans or lima beans? If you consume as few as five of these uncooked beans, poisonous effects can being to occur. Some other natural toxins include certain varieties of algae, the algae is eaten by bottom feeding shellfish, and then we eat the shellfish, which people around the world make part of their regular diet. There are mycotoxins, which are toxins derived from mushrooms, and they infect plants and flowers and legumes, nuts, vegetables, you name it, practically anything we consume in nature, the mushrooms have an effect on. Venom from snakes, spiders, scorpions, are natural, oh and for the bee-string therapists out there? Honey bee stings release hormones that prompt other nearby bees to come along for the attack, ouch, and we can't forget out friend Naegleria fowleri, which is an amoeba which attacks the body through the nasal cavity, and it eats its way up to the brain, and these are naturally occurring organisms that thrive in ponds and other still bodies of water where people like to go swimming, say, on a hot summer day. Or, if you want to get really hardcore, let's come up with something called Uranium Therapy for people. You know, uranium is just about as natural as anything else on the planet, and it was Randi who succinctly encapsulated this aspect of the naturalistic fallacy, as only Randi can when he once said, "Bird shit and gravel are natural, but I won't eat them".<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, basically, most stuff out there in nature is poisonous to some degree. I would not advise going out into the woods and eating a random plant. Chances are you're going to get an upset stomach at best, and may be ingesting a deadly poison at worst.<br />
<br />
R: And of course, the naturalistic fallacy isn't just used for things that we ingest and alternative medicine, things like that. It's also often used in the case of arguing against certain social concerns like homosexuality. One common argument is that homosexuality is not natural and therefore it is wrong. This of course ignores the fact that there are plenty of animals that do engage in some kind of homosexual behaviour. For instant, humans live in high rises, and no other animal does. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad or evil, and so it is with homosexuality.<br />
<br />
J: I took this at a different angle, I wanted to talk about when people use the naturalistic fallacy in conversation and what they talk about and some of the mistakes that they make. So, you'll quite commonly hear people say that, "if it's natural, it's good." I hear this with the people I talk to at work all the time, "it's natural, it's natural", comes up in conversations. The fallacies commonly cited reason why people don't eat something like zero calorie sugar substitute like Splenda or Equal, and I think you'd be surprised if you take a look at what those two products are made out of, how not dangerous they are. As a quick example, Splenda is made out of sucralose and is absolutely not dangerous at normal quantities, just like everything else. You could find the term "all natural" on food products, herbal remedies, even cleaning chemicals, and "all natural" is a nebulous term, but most people think it means it that it's naturally occurring, or non-processed, created by nature, The fact is, and I think a lot of people would be surprised to find out, is that most of our fruits, vegetables and farm animals have been selectively bred for flavour and yield size for thousands of years, and I always bring this one up when discussing the naturalistic fallacy with people that I'm talking to, typically at work, and I question you guys, is something still natural is mankind has selectively bred it to become something else? What's the difference between natural selection versus man-made selection.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean that's a good point that I started out with, that is, that "natural" is a vague term, it doesn't really have any clear definition and therefore it's very difficult to apply in any kind of rational sense, but even if we did have a workable definition such as, "occurring in nature", why would something that occurs in nature be more likely to be safe and effective or to be non-toxic to humans. Nature doesn't care about us, we're just one species of ten million, there's no particular reason why something that is natural would not be harmful to us. In fact, some plants and animals specifically evolved things to be toxic to us, so it really fails at every level, but it is I think a testimony to, I think, the unbelievably effective marketing strategy and propaganda that is almost taken as a given in our culture that something that is natural is better, despite the fact that there is simply no logic behind that at all.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to The Skeptics' Guide to the Univese, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with skepchick.org. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1535X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T19:30:12Z<p>Jay One: /* Naturalistic Fallacy */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU five by five and tonight we're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. This is a logical fallacy that takes the form of assuming or claiming that something is better, superior in some way, because it is "natural". There are many problems with this line of reasoning. One is that it's very difficult to define what one means by the word natural. There's no real operational definition or sharp line of demarcation between what is natural and what is not natural. But more importantly just because, for example, a remedy is perceived as being natural that does not mean that it is magically safe and effective. Often the naturalistic fallacy is used instead of evidence, actual evidence, for safety and efficacy. This is rife, for example, in the herbal remedies market. Herbs are often thought of as being something other than drugs simply because they're "natural". Ignoring the fact that that's completely irrelevant, if an herb is taken it contains chemicals - that's a drug - herbs are in fact often used as drugs, the fact that they are considered to be natural is completely irrelevant to the chemicals that they contain and their action inside the body, and that is, I think, an excellent example of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
B: The naturalistic fallacy has two fundamental aspects to it. There's the appeal to nature that Steve just mentioned; natural things are fundamentally good, and unnatural things aren't. Related to this appeal to nature is the act of deriving and 'ought' from an 'is' This means that the premise of your argument decribes what 'is', but the conclusion unfairly uses that to determine what 'ought' to be. A classic example is:<br />
# One All men are mortal <br />
# Two Socrates is a man <br />
# Three Therefore Socrates is a philosopher. <br />
A reasonable argument can not add something entirely new in their argument, which is what essentially is being done when commiting a naturalistic fallacy. There's no mention of philosophers in the premise, how then can a conclusion be derived about them. Philosopher David Hume first discussed this is-ought fallacy back in the 1700s. He described a logical gap between 'is' statements and 'ought' statements. How do you connect descriptions of what 'is' - something that science is great at - with descriptions of what 'ought to be' - something best handled by ethics and aesthetics. This is not impossible to accomplish, but it has to be done carefully with a well thought out, reasoned and supported argument, something sorely lacking in most abusers of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
E: The argument that there's some sort of intrinstic virtue in things that are natural appears to a certain set of senses inside of us. So, we might picture our mind as utopian nature scene with no human embellishments or infections, just the trees and the fields, the streams and the lakes, insects and birds, wild animals, wild flowers, and they all live in some sense of balance and harmony, so this is nature, right? Well what possible malignancies could there possibly be in such a paradise? Well, how about arsenic, for example. Arsenic is a naturally occurring chemical, when ingested by people it's a deadly poison, and it can be found in foods such as apricot pits, peach pits, apple seeds and cherry seed also contain certain amounts of cyanide, and in fact arsenic contamination of groundwater is a problem that affect millions of people across the world, but, it's all natural. And how about kidney beans or lima beans? If you consume as few as five of these uncooked beans, poisonous effects can being to occur. Some other natural toxins include certain varieties of algae, the algae is eaten by bottom feeding shellfish, and then we eat the shellfish, which people around the world make part of their regular diet. There are microtoxins, which are toxins derived from mushrooms, and they infect plants and flowers and mushrooms, nuts, vegetables, you name it, practically anything we consume in nature, the mushrooms have an effect on. Venom from snakes, spiders, scorpions, are natural, oh and for the bee-string therapists out there? Honey bee stings release hormones that prompt other nearby bees to come along for the attack, ouch, and we can't forget out friend Naegleria fowleri, which is an amoeba which attacks the body through the nasal cavity, and it eats its way up to the brain, and these are naturally occurring organisms that thrive in ponds and other still bodies of water where people like to go swimming, say, on a hot summer day. Or, if you want to get really hardcore, let's come up with something called Uranium Therapy for people. You know, uranium is just about as natural as anything else on the planet, and it was Randi who succinctly ecapsulated this aspect of the naturalistic fallacy, as only Randi can when he once said, "Bird shit and gravel are natural, but I won't eat them."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, bascially, most stuff out there in nature is poisonous to some degree. I would not advise going out into the wood and eating a random plant. Chances are you're going to get an upset stomach at best, and may be ingesting a dealy poison at worst.<br />
<br />
R: And of course, the naturalistic fallacy isn't just used for things that we ingest, and alternative medicine, things like that. It's also often used in the case of arguing against certain social concerns like homosexuality. One common argument is that homosexuality is not natural and therefore it is wrong. This of course ignores the fact that there are plenty of aniimals that do engage in some kind of homosexual behaviour. For instant, humans live in high rises, and no other animal does. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad or evil, and so it is with homosexuality.<br />
<br />
J: I took this at a different angle, I wanted to talk about when people use the naturalistic fallacy in conversation and what they talk about and some of the mistakes that they make. So, you'll quite commonly hear people say that "if it's natural, it's good". I hear this with the people I talk to at work all the time, "it's natural, it's natural," comes up in conversations. The fallacies commonly sited reason why people don't eat something like zero calorie sugar substitute like Splenda or Equal, and I think you'd be surprised if you take a look at what those two products are made out of, how not dangerous they are. As a quick example, Splenda is made out of sucralose and is absolutely not dangerous at normal quantities, just like everything else. You could find the term "all natural" on food products, herbal remedies, even cleaning chemicals, and "all natural" is a nebulous term, but what most people think it means it that it's naturally occurring or non-processed created by nature, The fact is, and I think a lot of people would be surprised to find out, is that most of our fruits, vegetables and farm animals have been selectively bred for flavour and yield size for thousands of years, and I always bring this one up when discussing the natrualistic fallacy with people that I'm talking to, typically at work, and I question you guys, is something still natural is mankind has selectively bred it to become something else? What's the difference between natural selection versus man-made selection.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean that's a good point that I started out with, that is, that "natural" is a vague term, it doesn't really have any clear definition and therefore it's very difficult to apply in any kind of rational sense, but even if we did have a workable definition such asc "occurring in nature," why would something that occurs in nature be more likely to be safe and effective or to be non-toxic to humans. Nature doesn't care about us, we're just one species of ten million, there's no particular reason why something that is natural would not be harmful to us. In fact, some plants and animals specifically evolved things to be toxic to us, so it really fails at every level, but it is I think a testimony to, I think, the unbelieveably effective marketing strategy and propaganda that is almost taken as a given in our culture that something that is natural is better, despite the fact that there is simply no logic in that at all.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to The Skeptics' Guide to the Univese, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with skepchick.org. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1525X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T19:25:13Z<p>Jay One: /* Naturalistic Fallacy */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU five by five and tonight we're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. This is a logical fallacy that takes the form of assuming or claiming that something is better, superior in some way, because it is "natural". There are many problems with this line of reasoning. One is that it is very difficult to define what one means by the word natural. There's no real operational definition or sharp line of demarcation between what is natural and what is not natural. But more importantly just because, for example, a remedy is perceived as being natural that does not mean that is is magically safe and effective. Often the naturalistic fallacy is used instead of evidence, actual evidence, for safety and efficacy. This is rife, for example, in the herbal remedies market. Herbs are often thought of as being something other than drugs maybe because they're "natural". Ignoring the fact that that's completely irrelevant, if an herb is taken it contains chemicals - that's a drug - herbs are in fact often used as drugs, the fact that they are considered to be natural is completely irrelevant to the chemicals that they contain and their action inside the body, and that is, I think, an excellent example of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
B: The naturalistic fallacy has two fundamental aspects to it. There's the appeal to nature that Steve just mentioned; natural things are fundamentally good, and unnatural things aren't. Related to this appeal to nature is the act of deriving and 'ought' from an 'is'; this means that the premise of your argument decribes what 'is', but the conclusion unfairly uses that to determine what 'ought' to be. A classic example is: 1. All men are mortal 2. Socrates is a man 3. Therefore Socrates is a philosopher. A reasonable argument can not add something entirely new in their argument, which is what essentially is being done when commiting a naturalistic fallacy. There's no mention of philosophers in the premise, how then can a conclusion be derived about them. Philosopher David Hume first discussed this is-ought fallacy back in the 1700s. He described a logical gap between 'is' statements and 'ought' statements. How do you connect descriptions of what 'is' - something that science is great at - with descriptions of what 'ought to be' - something best handled by ethics and aesthetics. This is not impossible to accomplish, but it has to be done carefully with a well thought out, reasoned and supported argument, something sorely lacking in most abusers of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
E: The argument that there's some sort of intrinstic virtue in things that are natural appears to a certain set of senses inside of us. So, we might picture our mind as utopian nature scene with no human embellishments or infections, just the trees and the fields, the streams and the lakes, insects and birds, wild animals, wild flowers, and they all live in some sense of balance and harmony, so this is nature, right? Well what possible malignancies could there possibly be in such a paradise? Well, how about arsenic, for example. Arsenic is a naturally occurring chemical, when ingested by people it's a deadly poison, and it can be found in foods such as apricot pits, peach pits, apple seeds and cherry seed also contain certain amounts of cyanide, and in fact arsenic contamination of groundwater is a problem that affect millions of people across the world, but, it's all natural. And how about kidney beans or lima beans? If you consume as few as five of these uncooked beans, poisonous effects can being to occur. Some other natural toxins include certain varieties of algae, the algae is eaten by bottom feeding shellfish, and then we eat the shellfish, which people around the world make part of their regular diet. There are microtoxins, which are toxins derived from mushrooms, and they infect plants and flowers and mushrooms, nuts, vegetables, you name it, practically anything we consume in nature, the mushrooms have an effect on. Venom from snakes, spiders, scorpions, are natural, oh and for the bee-string therapists out there? Honey bee stings release hormones that prompt other nearby bees to come along for the attack, ouch, and we can't forget out friend Naegleria fowleri, which is an amoeba which attacks the body through the nasal cavity, and it eats its way up to the brain, and these are naturally occurring organisms that thrive in ponds and other still bodies of water where people like to go swimming, say, on a hot summer day. Or, if you want to get really hardcore, let's come up with something called Uranium Therapy for people. You know, uranium is just about as natural as anything else on the planet, and it was Randi who succinctly ecapsulated this aspect of the naturalistic fallacy, as only Randi can when he once said, "Bird shit and gravel are natural, but I won't eat them."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, bascially, most stuff out there in nature is poisonous to some degree. I would not advise going out into the wood and eating a random plant. Chances are you're going to get an upset stomach at best, and may be ingesting a dealy poison at worst.<br />
<br />
R: And of course, the naturalistic fallacy isn't just used for things that we ingest, and alternative medicine, things like that. It's also often used in the case of arguing against certain social concerns like homosexuality. One common argument is that homosexuality is not natural and therefore it is wrong. This of course ignores the fact that there are plenty of aniimals that do engage in some kind of homosexual behaviour. For instant, humans live in high rises, and no other animal does. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad or evil, and so it is with homosexuality.<br />
<br />
J: I took this at a different angle, I wanted to talk about when people use the naturalistic fallacy in conversation and what they talk about and some of the mistakes that they make. So, you'll quite commonly hear people say that "if it's natural, it's good". I hear this with the people I talk to at work all the time, "it's natural, it's natural," comes up in conversations. The fallacies commonly sited reason why people don't eat something like zero calorie sugar substitute like Splenda or Equal, and I think you'd be surprised if you take a look at what those two products are made out of, how not dangerous they are. As a quick example, Splenda is made out of sucralose and is absolutely not dangerous at normal quantities, just like everything else. You could find the term "all natural" on food products, herbal remedies, even cleaning chemicals, and "all natural" is a nebulous term, but what most people think it means it that it's naturally occurring or non-processed created by nature, The fact is, and I think a lot of people would be surprised to find out, is that most of our fruits, vegetables and farm animals have been selectively bred for flavour and yield size for thousands of years, and I always bring this one up when discussing the natrualistic fallacy with people that I'm talking to, typically at work, and I question you guys, is something still natural is mankind has selectively bred it to become something else? What's the difference between natural selection versus man-made selection.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean that's a good point that I started out with, that is, that "natural" is a vague term, it doesn't really have any clear definition and therefore it's very difficult to apply in any kind of rational sense, but even if we did have a workable definition such asc "occurring in nature," why would something that occurs in nature be more likely to be safe and effective or to be non-toxic to humans. Nature doesn't care about us, we're just one species of ten million, there's no particular reason why something that is natural would not be harmful to us. In fact, some plants and animals specifically evolved things to be toxic to us, so it really fails at every level, but it is I think a testimony to, I think, the unbelieveably effective marketing strategy and propaganda that is almost taken as a given in our culture that something that is natural is better, despite the fact that there is simply no logic in that at all.<br />
<br />
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to The Skeptics' Guide to the Univese, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with skepchick.org. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1485X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T17:59:33Z<p>Jay One: /* Naturalistic Fallacy */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU five by five and tonight we're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. This is a logical fallacy that takes the form of assuming or claiming that something is better, superior in some way, because it is "natural". There are many problems with this line of reasoning. One is that it is very difficult to define what one means by the word natural. There's no real operational definition or sharp line of demarcation between what is natural and what is not natural. But more importantly just because, for example, a remedy is perceived as being natural that does not mean that is is magically safe and effective. Often the naturalistic fallacy is used instead of evidence, actual evidence, for safety and efficacy. This is rife, for example, in the herbal remedies market. Herbs are often thought of as being something other than drugs maybe because they're "natural". Ignoring the fact that that's completely irrelevant, if an herb is taken it contains chemicals - that's a drug - herbs are in fact often used as drugs, the fact that they are considered to be natural is completely irrelevant to the chemicals that they contain and their action inside the body, and that is, I think, an excellent example of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
B: The naturalistic fallacy has two fundamental aspects to it. There's the appeal to nature that Steve just mentioned - natural things are fundamentally good, and unnatural things aren't - related to this appeal to nature<br />
<br />
Work in progress.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1465X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T17:13:40Z<p>Jay One: /* Naturalistic Fallacy */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU five by five and tonight we're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. This is a logical fallacy that takes the form of assuming or claiming that something is better, superior in some way, because it is "natural". There are many problems with this line of reasoning. One is that it is very difficult to define what one means by the word natural. There's no real operational definition or sharp line of demarcation between what is natural and what is not natural. But more importantly just because, for example, a remedy is perceived as being natural that does not mean that is is magically safe and effective. Often the naturalistic fallacy is used instead of evidence, actual evidence, for safety and efficacy. This is rife, for example, in the herbal remedies market. Herbs are often thought of as being something other than drugs maybe because they're "natural". Ignoring the fact that that's completely irrelevant, if an herb is taken it contains chemicals - that's a drug - herbs are in fact often used as drugs, the fact that they are considered to be natural is completely irrelevant to the chemicals that they contain and their action inside the body, and that is, I think, an excellent example of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
<br />
B:The naturalistic fallacy has two fundamental aspects to it: there's the appeal to nature that Steve just mentioned - natural things are fundamentally good, and unatural things aren't.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1455X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T17:12:16Z<p>Jay One: /* Naturalistic Fallacy */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU five by five and tonight we're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. This is a logical fallacy that takes the form of assuming or claiming that something is better, superior in some way, because it is "natural". There are many problems with this line of reasoning. One is that it is very difficult to define what one means by the word natural. There's no real operational definition or sharp line of demarcation between what is natural and what is not natural. But more importantly just because, for example, a remedy is perceived as being natural that does not mean that is is magically safe and effective. Often the naturalistic fallacy is used instead of evidence, actual evidence, for safety and efficacy. This is rife, for example, in the herbal remedies market. Herbs are often thought of as being something other than drugs maybe because they're "natural". Ignoring the fact that that's completely irrelevant, if an herb is taken it contains chemicals - that's a drug - herbs are in fact often used as drugs, the fact that they are considered to be natural is completely irrelevant to the chemicals that they contain and their action inside the body, and that is, I think, an excellent example of the naturalistic fallacy.<br />
B:The naturalistic fallacy has two fundamental aspects to it: there's the appeal to nature that Steve just mentioned - natural things are fundamentally good, and unatural things aren't.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1445X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T16:34:51Z<p>Jay One: /* Naturalistic Fallacy */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S: This is the SGU 5x5 and tonight we're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. This is a logical fallacy that takes the form of assuming or claiming that something is better, superior in some way, because it is "natural". There are many problems with this line of reasoning. One is that it is very difficult to define what one means by the word natural, there's no real operational defininition or sharp line of demarcation.</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1435X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T16:28:58Z<p>Jay One: /* Naturalistic Fallacy */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan. <br />
<br />
S:</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1425X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T16:28:35Z<p>Jay One: /* Skeptical Rogues */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella<br />
<br />
== Naturalistic Fallacy ==</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1415X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T16:28:06Z<p>Jay One: /* links */</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Rogues ==<br />
<br />
* S: Steven Novella<br />
* E: Evan Bernstein<br />
* J: Jay Novella<br />
* R: Rebecca Watson<br />
* B: Bob Novella</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_110&diff=1405X5 Episode 1102012-04-17T16:25:01Z<p>Jay One: Created page with "== links == * [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes] * [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast..."</p>
<hr />
<div>== links ==<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=110 Show Notes]<br />
* [http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-04-11.mp3 Download Podcast]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41293.0.html Forum Topic]</div>Jay Onehttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=139Main Page2012-04-17T16:23:08Z<p>Jay One: /* 2012 */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Welcome ==<br />
<br />
Welcome to SGU Transcripts. We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!<br />
<br />
My method of transcription is to use [http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ VLC media player], and dial down the speed until I can type comfortably. A quick alt-tab, then shift-left a couple of times will skip back a few seconds if you missed something. After a spell check, the transcript gets pasted into the wiki. Then add some headings, bullets, hyperlinks and times. That's it!<br />
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If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, sign up and then add a page for it and put in a note to say that you're working on it. That way we can hopefully avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.<br />
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== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]<br />
<br />
=== 2012 === <br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_352]], Apr 14 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_351]], Apr 7 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_350]], Mar 31 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_348]], Mar 17 2012<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_338]], Jan 07, 2012 (incomplete)<br />
<br />
=== 2006 ===<br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_31]], Feb 22 2006 (incomplete)<br />
<br />
=== 2005 ===<br />
<br />
* [[SGU_Episode_1]], May 4 2005<br />
<br />
== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]<br />
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]<br />
<br />
=== 2012 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_110]], Apr 11 2012,Naturalistic Fallacy<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic<br />
<br />
=== 2009 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy <br />
* [[5X5_Episode_53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis<br />
<br />
=== 2008 ===<br />
<br />
* [[5X5_Episode_45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism<br />
<br />
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* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.<br />
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* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]</div>Jay One