https://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Jim+Gibson&feedformat=atomSGUTranscripts - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T17:19:57ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.35.13https://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=10180Template:SGU episode list2015-09-17T16:40:27Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 48 as complete.</p>
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<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
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Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
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Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
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Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
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Jump to: [[#2014|2014]], [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
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{|<br />
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|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2015"><big>'''2015'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 531]], Sep 12 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 530]], Sep 5 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 529]], Aug 29 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 528]], Aug 22 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 527]], Aug 15 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 526]], Aug 8 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 525]], Aug 1 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 524]], Jul 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 523]], Jul 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 522]], Jul 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 521]], Jul 4 2015 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 520]], Jun 27 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 519]], Jun 20 2015 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 518]], Jun 13 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 517]], Jun 6 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 516]], May 30 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 10-Hour Show]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"| <span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_48&diff=10179SGU Episode 482015-09-17T16:35:25Z<p>Jim Gibson: Complete transcription.</p>
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, June 21, 2006. This is your host Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this week are Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Merry summer solstice, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hello.<br />
<br />
S: ... Jay Novella, ...<br />
<br />
J: Ahoy!<br />
<br />
S: ... and Perry DeAngelis.<br />
<br />
P: Evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everyone doing this evening?<br />
<br />
B: Good, Steve.<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
J: Good. How are you doing, Steve?<br />
<br />
B: Longest day of the year!<br />
<br />
S: Yup, the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.<br />
<br />
J: The worst day to be a vampire.<br />
<br />
S: That's apparent.<br />
<br />
B: Well, depends where you are.<br />
<br />
S: In the northern hemisphere.<br />
<br />
B: Go real north and you'll have a day that will last five or six months. That's a bad day.<br />
<br />
J: That's true.<br />
<br />
R: It's insights like these that keep our audience tuning in week after week.<br />
<br />
S: Riveting.<br />
<br />
J: They love it.<br />
<br />
S: The plight of polar vampires.<br />
<br />
R: I'm going to write a scientific paper about that.<br />
<br />
S: So coming up later in the show we have an interview with Steve Mirsky from Scientific American magazine, but first we'll begin with some news items, as usual.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Herbs for Menopause <small>(1:23)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: A recent survey that was published in the New York Times showed that women are using herbal remedies for menopausal symptoms in high numbers. I believe the numbers were about 60 or 70%.<br />
<br />
R: But not telling their doctors about it.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: Apparently, for the most part.<br />
<br />
S: Which goes along with previous studies which show that only about a third of patients will report supplements and herbs that they're taking to their physicians, usually either because physicians don't specifically ask, or because patients don't think that they need to report them because they're not drugs, they're just supplements, or because they're embarrassed because they think their physician will be judgmental about them. But either way there is a huge gap in the reporting of that. The survey also showed that about two thirds of the women who were taking the supplements felt that they were effective in relieving the symptoms, but 70% of former users felt that they did not help.<br />
<br />
R: So what you're saying is there is some sort of short-term memory loss that's affected?<br />
<br />
S: Right, well obviously it makes sense that people who stop taking them didn't think they were working, and people who continue to take them, at least some of them, think that that they do work, but you add those numbers, I don't know what the percentages were, but it comes out about 50-50 that it's subjectively helping or not, which is about what you expect from the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
R: Steve, isn't placebo effect like one third?<br />
<br />
S: It depends on what you're looking at. For subjective symptoms it could be as high as 50%. For pain it usually comes out to about a third, but in some studies it's higher.<br />
<br />
R: Gotcha!<br />
<br />
S: For more concrete outcomes it could be much lower: 5, 10, or 15 percent. So it depends on the outcome that you're looking at. But they did list some of the more common ones. Ginkgo biloba was listed. Ginko is -- we haven't really (''unintelligible'') much on this podcast we've talked about herbs and supplements in general. This is a topic that I'm particularly interested in, and I've written a couple of articles about it. I think on the NESS site you can find an article about natural mythology or marketing supplements are a couple of the articles I wrote. The interesting thing about herbs is that, and this is I think the most common misconception among the public, is that herbs are drugs. They are drugs. They are not supplements. They are not taken for their nutritional value. They are by definition not vitamins. They are taken for their apparent pharmacological activity. Therefore they are drugs. In some countries in the world, I think Australia in particular has actually very scientific, rational regulations regarding these substances. America probably has the worst regulation right now. We have the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, which is a horrible piece of legislation, which, basically, specifically categorizes herbs as supplements, and at the same time changing the regulation for supplements so that companies can market them without any evidence for either safety or effectiveness. There are some regulations about how they have to couch their claims. They can't make disease-curing claims, but they can make this newly manufactured category of health claims called ''structure function'' claims. So what that basically means is that you can say that this "supplement" supports this biological function or this structure, but you can't say that it cures a disease.<br />
<br />
R: Can you say that it gets rid of symptoms?<br />
<br />
S: You can, and you could say like "ginkgo biloba improves mental function." You can't say it cures or treats Alzheimer's disease, because that's a disease, but you could say that it improves cognitive function and mental alertness and sharpness. You could basically make those claims as long as you word it properly. The difference in terms of marketing to the public becomes a difference -- a distinction without a difference. People take ginko biloba because they think it's going to make them smarter, make them think clearer.<br />
<br />
P: What's desperately needed is the Supplemental Safety Act being championed in the Congress by Senator Dick Durbin.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: I suggest everyone contact their congresspeople and urge them to finally act on this long-delayed act -- Supplemental Safety Act.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, some version of that, and that's a good start. We have to repeal DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. It's horrible legislation. It has to be replaced by something that is more based on what these things actually are. And, also, the other thing is that for the reasons that most of these things are marketed and taken, they just don't work. Like ginkgo biloba, there was actually a very large, well-designed, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial, a fairly definitive trial, which showed absolutely zero benefit for mental function for ginkgo biloba. It doesn't work. And, also, when you investigate these herbs, if you look at where did the idea originally come from that it worked for this in any case, and people think it "Oh, it must've been based on some traditional cultures thousands of years of experience with it", and that turns out not to be true in most of the cases. It's a fairly recent notion that some marketing guy came up with.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but Steve, it's all natural, though.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's the other -- you bring up the natural thing. I think about 40% of the women who were asked why they're take these things specifically cited that they wanted to take something that was "natural" -- 45%.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, 45%.<br />
<br />
B: Well, arsenic is natural. Maybe they should try that.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Don't give them any ideas.<br />
<br />
S: That is the product of a couple of decades of slick marketing, the whole idea that something is ''natural''. Being natural does not make things magically safe and effective. "Nature doesn't care about us" is the bottom line. Plants evolve for their own sake, and if it's to their advantage to be poisonous to mammals, they'll be poisonous to mammals.<br />
<br />
J: What are you saying?<br />
<br />
R: He's saying you shouldn't have eaten those berries, Jay.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, go out into the woods in your backyard and eat some random plants. They're all natural, too. Most of the pharmaceutical agents we have, too, were derived from natural products.<br />
<br />
R: That's the idea is that we find a natural product that has some sort of effect, we study it, and then we manage to take what's good about that natural product and separate it from what bad about it, so we can package up the good.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, purify it, quantify it, test it. It's a known entity.<br />
<br />
B: Control it, yup.<br />
<br />
R: Right. And instead people decide that they don't want that. They'd rather go with the unknown quality of (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
J: But you can't trust the FDA. The FDA is in the pocket of the pharmaceutical companies.<br />
<br />
R: Big pharma.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, big pharma conspiracies play a big role with that as well. But, also, its very interesting that people say "Don't trust the big pharmaceutical companies," so therefore they trust supplement manufacturers?<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Like they have different motives than the pharmaceutical industry? Also, guess what? The supplement industry's being taken over by the pharmaceutical industry. The big pharma companies are the ones who are now making the supplements, because, hey!, ...<br />
<br />
R: They're catching on. It's where the money is.<br />
<br />
S: Why not? You mean they can sell drugs to the public and not spend $100 million on research? Sure! That's a good deal for them.<br />
<br />
R: They're saying "Well, we could manufacture this actual pill that costs millions of dollars, or we could just sell sugar pills, and people still buy them, so why not?<br />
<br />
S: Charge a lot of money. Spend no money on research. Not take the risk that it's going to be unsafe or not work.<br />
<br />
R: That's the thing.<br />
<br />
B: That's a win-win.<br />
<br />
R: The pharmaceutical companies are no angels, so it's kind of tough for people like us to take the skeptical point and say "No, they're not out to kill you." But then, yeah, they are out for the almighty dollar, just like everybody else, and yes, sometimes they do jerky things.<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
R: It's a fine line.<br />
<br />
S: But they're a highly regulated industry for that reason.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: And there are a lot of watchdogs on them, you know, academic medical researchers, although even though, of course, a lot of academics do research for the pharmaceutical industry, they also do a lot of investigator initiated or independent research with all these drugs. And the longer a drug's been out there, the greater the chance that it's been in a lot of studies. And it's also being used by a lot of people, so we get a lot of scientific data and a lot of experience with these chemicals, and the pharmaceutical industry can't control all of that. People use the Vioxx example and say "Yep, they dragged their heels on that evidence, and they tried to spin it the right way, and that was wrong of the company to do that." But the truth ultimately came out because the studies were -- further studies were being done. If an herb caused the same increase in heart attack risk that Vioxx did, we would never know about.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because the kind of studies that showed that Vioxx carried that risk are not being done, largely, with the herbs and other supplements. So we just never know about it. So it's easy to claim that they're safe when you have no data.<br />
<br />
R: Hm.<br />
<br />
=== Anne Coulter and Evolution <small>(10:44)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: Well the other news item that was prominent in the last week or so we could talk about very quickly was {{w|Ann Coulter}}'s new book.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: We're not going to talk about the politics of this, but just the fact that she took the time in her latest book ''Godless'' to take a swipe at evolution. I know Bob, you were particularly annoyed by this.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, it really just annoyed the hell out of me. More so than anything else she had to say, this jt really rankled me. Just a couple of quotes here that are just so telling. Let's see, she's got here "liberals creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor. It's a make-believe story based on a theory that's a tautology with no proof in the scientist laboratory or the fossil record, and that's after a hundred and fifty years of very determined looking. We would not still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God." That's just -- where do you start with something like that? A 150 years of very determined looking and we found nothing? No evidence? Just unbelievable.<br />
<br />
R: You can't say anything to that, because every single word is just pure and utter ignorance.<br />
<br />
S: It is. It's factually ignorant. Forget about the logic. The depth of her factual ignorance is astounding.<br />
<br />
B: I found a little diatribe on the web. Thought it was pretty funny. Some guy said "I see that Coulters under-nourished body has finally resorted to burning brain tissue to keep itself going." I kind of liked that.<br />
<br />
J: Ahhh.<br />
<br />
R: Zing!<br />
<br />
B: She did an interview with John Hawkins, and he gave her just a couple questions here about evolution that also were pretty interesting. He says "If you were to pick three concepts, facts, or ideas that most undercut the theory of evolution, what would they be?" Ann Coulter says "One it's illogical, two there's no physical evidence for it, three there's physical evidence that directly contradicts it. Apart from those three concerns, I'd say it's a pretty solid theory." That's her response to that.<br />
<br />
J: She's an idiot.<br />
<br />
P: Scientifically, just like the President, but scientifically, the two of them are chimpanzees. They are horrible, and I think, you know, it is directly related to their religiosity. That explains it to me.<br />
<br />
S: The other politician who has weighed in on this in the last year or so is Pat Buchanan. <br />
<br />
B: Yes.<br />
<br />
P: Another ...<br />
<br />
S: He also wrote a couple of very negative articles about <br />
<br />
P: ... hyper-religious guy, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The lesson here is that these people, who are basically either politicians or political commentators, should not talk about science.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Just shut up about science, ...<br />
<br />
P: Hear, hear!<br />
<br />
S: ... because you are totally ignorant of the topic that you are talking about, and they embarrass themselves.<br />
<br />
R: And they use that ignorance when they get into positions of political power, and they screw with all of our science programs, like Bush putting some moron PR 23-year-old college dropout at the head of -- like making decisions for NASA.<br />
<br />
P: That's true.<br />
<br />
R: It's just crap.<br />
<br />
J: Did you see that video of Ann Coulter talking about Vietnam, and she's rattling off made-up statistics.<br />
<br />
B: Made-up!<br />
<br />
S: Well she said that Canada sent troops to Vietnam, and it was wrong, was the thing I saw. That's a very minor, trivial historical error to make, compared to saying that there are no fossil evidence in evolution.<br />
<br />
P: Exactly. Exaclty.<br />
<br />
S: That's abjectly ignorant, and she's trotting out the whole evolution is a tautology nonsense from like 50 years ago? Please. I mean that's ...<br />
<br />
B: What kind of blinders do you to have on to spout stuff like that about evolution. I mean, how blind ...<br />
<br />
P: Christian ones.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, Bob. She's a true believer, and she's spouting her religion.<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
J: And its coloring here logic.<br />
<br />
S: What this comes from, is that her information comes 100% from secondary, hostile sources. She has never cracked an evolution science book in her life.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: That's why she can say that, because she thinks that what creationists say about evolution is all that there is to be said about it. That that's true. She has no concept that she has been fed a 100% pack of abject lies and distortions.<br />
<br />
P: Now, you know, I'd like to think that she has a concept and just doesn't care. That would give her a little more credibility, but maybe you're right.<br />
<br />
S: Either way it's bad.<br />
<br />
P: Either way it's bad.<br />
<br />
S: What's worse, that she is just ignorant or that she's intellectually lazy and has no intellectual rigor when it comes to ...<br />
<br />
P: It's the same thing that led to the President's disgraceful decision on stem cells, on stem cell research. It's the exact same thing.<br />
<br />
R: Oh she knows her audience, though, and that's what they want to hear.<br />
<br />
P: That's true.<br />
<br />
R: That's why they're going to shell over the bucks for.<br />
<br />
J: Let's face it, guys.<br />
<br />
R: She's got us talking about her.<br />
<br />
J: She's not hot enough to spout crap like that without it hurting her.<br />
<br />
S: She's really not. She needs to eat a friggin' sandwich.<br />
<br />
J: Eat something, will you, for Christ's sake.<br />
<br />
P: By the way, Rebecca, I'm sure you'd agree that sandwich should have some meat in it, don't you think?<br />
<br />
R: Even I would agree, yes. Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: I love it. Never heard anyone say the word meat with so much venom in it. That was awesome, Perry.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, man!<br />
<br />
R: Sorry, Steve.<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails ==<br />
<br />
=== Penta Water <small>(15:56)</small> ===<br />
S: Email number one come from Derek Ross. Derek writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
"Hello, my name is Derek Ross. I was wondering of you have ever heard of Penta water or somthing like it. This stuff really cracks me up." (S: and he gives the link [www.pentawater.com www.pentawater.com]) "Is Penta really a new composition of matter?" (S: nows he's quoting the website) "Yes. Penta displays characteristics unique from other water, including a higher boiling point, higher surface tension, and a lower viscosity."<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: I checked into pentawater. I don't know if you guys had a chance to do that.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I did. It's such bunk.<br />
<br />
R: Never heard of it.<br />
<br />
S: It's total bunk.<br />
<br />
B: It is.<br />
<br />
S: It actually ties in nicely to the herbal stuff we were talking about before, because -- so it's basically magic water. There are always multiple versions of magic water on the market, and these guys claiming all kinds of health benefits. He gives the standard, ridiculous anecdotal story "But oh, I had all these aches and pains and then I realized that I needed this magical water, and I've cured all of my ails, and people who take it think it's wonderful." But it's udder nonsense. These claims are not validated, of course, in any (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
P: Didn't we see James Randi eviscerate magic water on his Nova special?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I got some ...<br />
<br />
S: That was the ''Energized Water''. It's basically the same.<br />
<br />
P: Energized water?<br />
<br />
R: It's all the same.<br />
<br />
B: Well, I've got some quotes from Randi regarding this. He says "Folks, water is water. Its burned hydrogen, no more, no less." What a great term. I never heard of water referred to as burned hydrogen, but that's pretty cool. The molecules of H2O do not cluster as they claim. There's no such thing as an essence of water by any stretch of scientific reasoning or imagination. And he goes on, and it's just total baloney.<br />
<br />
S: They commit a real doozy of a logical fallacy, too, on the website. They say that "We're comprised of 62% water," which I think that figure is wrong. I think it's more. "... and therefore we need pure, pure water in order to heal and be healthy and to get energy. This is the purest water on the planet." You can't even put a twist of lime in the water, it has to be absolutely pure. That's a ''non sequitur''. That doesn't mean anything, because we're made of water we need to drink pure, pure water?<br />
<br />
B: Plus, not only purity, they also spout these scientific terms that they use: ''molecular redefinition process'', that it's supposed to reduce the size of the water molecule clusters, which using a patent-pending physics process. Of course ...<br />
<br />
R: You know, over at the Penta Office they have a giant wheel, and they just spin it, and it lands I like "Oh, protein reconfiguration."<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Throw it on the website.<br />
<br />
S: The wheel of technobabble.<br />
<br />
P: Molecular redefinition.<br />
<br />
B: "Oxygenation" is kind of a buzzword these days, so it's "oxygenated," which supposedly makes it enter the bloodstream faster, and, of course, there is no evidence that any of that happens.<br />
<br />
R: It's gets to the bloodstream faster.<br />
<br />
S: It's just making it up out of whole cloth.<br />
<br />
J: How is pentawater better than, you know, unawater?<br />
<br />
S: Or triwater. I like triwater.<br />
<br />
B: I like the docahedron water.<br />
<br />
S: Do they drink pentawater at the Pentagon, I wonder?<br />
<br />
R: It must be getting late. Let's move on.<br />
<br />
=== Alcoholism <small>(19:20)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: Next email! This one comes from Frank Nameche, from New Boston, New Hampshire. Not the old Boston. He comes from New Boston.<br />
<br />
R: Do you know what? Screw that. I don't know about these upstarts in New Boston.<br />
<br />
P: Usurpers!<br />
<br />
S: Hold your judgement for a moment, Rebecca. Frank writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I want to start by saying that I love the podcast. I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV, but I can sense BS a mile off and enjoy listening to like-minded thinkers. During my teen years I was "diagnosed" as an alcoholic and spent many years using that as an excuse to continue drinking. At that time I spent most days and nights drunk. At age 28 I decided to take ownership of my life and insisted that I was no longer an alcoholic and to put a stop to it. Now at 43 I am still sober and loving life. Is alcoholism a real disease as is the common wisdom, or is it a lot of BS and pandering to people in an overly PC society? On a side note, is there a chance that Rebecca will make a bikini or lingerie calendar any time soon? You could donate the proceeds to science education. Best regards from a true fan of Rebecca.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
R: I love New Boston. Have I ever told you guys how much better New Boston is than old Boston? Wait, okay, well before we start talking about alcoholism, this would be a perfect time to mention that if Frank were a true fan he would know that I do in fact have a nudie calendar, The Skepchick Calendar, which we put out in 2006 and which we will be putting out again this year for 2007. There's going to be one of all women and also one with men, such as Phil Plait, who you heard on the podcast a few weeks ago, Michael Shermer, Richard Wiseman, a lot of cool people like that.<br />
<br />
S: Very tasteful, too. Very tasteful.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, yeah, we'll go with that. Everything's relative, I guess.<br />
<br />
P: As tasteful as a pack of nude skeptics can be.<br />
<br />
R: So you can check the Skepchick website, though, for more news on that.<br />
<br />
S: So is alcoholism a real disease?<br />
<br />
R: No.<br />
<br />
S: Well, this is a bit of a complicated question, and it gets to how you define disease, but I'll give you just a quick distillation. I think the short answer is "No," in that alcoholism is not a pathophysiological disease, meaning that we could say, yeah, there's some inherent abnormality in the way the brain is working that makes one an alcoholic. However, I do think it is reasonable to characterize alcoholism as a disorder. Disorder is a less of a specific term. It just means that there's something functionally out of whack that is a detriment to the individual. Certainly it's a pattern of behavior. There is an actual physical addiction component of it. In that way, there are changes to the receptors in the brain, but they're induced by the chronic exposure to alcohol itself. So, you know, it's partly behavioral, it's partly biological. It's better categorized as a disorder than a true disease, but that none of that implies that an individual is helpless in the face of it or that they cannot cure themselves or control their alcoholism through behavioral means. They may not be able to do it on their own. They may need either professional or personal help in doing so, but it should not be used as an excuse, because one is helpless in the face of it. That's actually my big beef with the twelve-step AA programs, is that ...<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah. Their whole thing is giving up personal responsibility, and I think that ties in with calling it a disease.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly.<br />
<br />
R: Giving it over to a higher power.<br />
<br />
S: And, again, I have to say I think the definitive treatment of this topic in popular culture was South Park, which they do so often.<br />
<br />
B: Really.<br />
<br />
S: I think one of the kids fathers was told that he was an alcoholic and it's a disease, and then he goes spiraling out-of-control, because he thinks that he's helpless in the face of this disease. And of course the kid, I guess it was Stan, had to talk him down, had to let him know that "You can control this. It's not something beyond your control," and they really went through the whole topic very well.<br />
<br />
J: But they do have a physical addiction to it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, there is definitely a physical addiction component to it, and there's a psychological, behavioral component to it as well.<br />
<br />
J: But aren't all drugs that way, you know, drugs that people tend to abuse like heroin and cocaine and all that. There's really no difference between being an alcoholic and being a cokehead.<br />
<br />
S: That is actually literally true from a neurological, biological point of view, in that the same exact changes happen in the same part of the brain in response to addiction to either cocaine or heroin or alcohol. Interestingly, nicotine is different. Biological changes in response to nicotine are different than the other drugs that I mentioned.<br />
<br />
Well, let's -- we're getting short on time, so let's go on to our interview with Steve Mirsky.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Steve Mirsky <small>(24:57)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is Steve Mirsky. Steve, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
SM: Thank you very much -- pleasure to be here.<br />
<br />
S: Steve Mirsky, for those of you who may not know, is the author of the ''Antigravity'' column in Scientific American. He's also one of the column editors for Scientific American.<br />
<br />
SM: One of the article editors.<br />
<br />
S: One of the article editors.<br />
<br />
SM: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: He is also, now, the host of ''Science Talk'', the podcast of Scientific American magazine, which also happens to be the number one science podcast out there, at least according to iTunes, and doing a little Internet searching on you to see if I could dredge up some background information, I noticed that you were a Knight Fellow.<br />
<br />
SM: Guilty.<br />
<br />
S: What uh ...<br />
<br />
SM: MIT, right, right.<br />
<br />
S: And you have your bachelors from CUNY and a Masters in chemistry from Cornell, but you decided to give up a career in chemistry to go into science writing.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, that was a mutual decision that the university and I made.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: And interestingly, you also did a little acting before going into science.<br />
<br />
SM: Uh, guilty again.<br />
<br />
R: What sort of acting did you do?<br />
<br />
SM: I, actually, right out of high school I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts here in New York City, because I say ''here'' because I am in New York City right now. That's where I live, and that's were the magazine is -- Scientific American, and I spent a summer with the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. That was a long, long time ago, in fact, Lionel Barrymore was in the company, that's how long ago it was.<br />
<br />
R: Oh wow! Pretty good.<br />
<br />
SM: No, no, no, no. It was 1978, actually. Actually, who ''was'' in the company was Terrence Mann, who went on to become a very big-name Broadway actor and has been nominated for Tonys and some other people who you've seen on TV but you might not know their names. I did that for a little while, and then I decided to go to college, and it was interesting, because one of the reasons I decided to go to college was the realization that I really didn't know any science, and I thought that that was important to know in our modern world. And, actually, one of the reasons I decided ''that'' was because I happened to pick up during that summer a copy of Somerset Maugm's ''The Razors Edge'', and I really related to the character in there, who was a young guy who was still kind of knocking around trying to find his path in life, and at one point, I think, in the book, he's just going to science lectures in Paris, and that's where I got that idea.<br />
<br />
S: So do you think that your background in drama has helped either your science writing or your podcast personality?<br />
<br />
SM: Well, yeah, I think there's no question that it's just made me kind of comfortable in front of a microphone, which really can't hurt in this brave new world of podcasting. And I also did some radio after I got out of school. I spent a year at a radio station being a morning man. I almost did a goofy morning man, but I really wasn't that goofy. So that's obviously, you know, a big help there, and yeah, definitely informs the writing too, because I know in the column I feel a real obligation to be entertaining as well as informative.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
SM: You know there's definitely that the theater background comes into play there, pardon the play on words, to keep the audience engaged. It's great to impart the info, but they have to stay in the room 'til the end, so.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Yeah, we try to inject a little bit of humor into our podcast every now and then.<br />
<br />
R: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Try to keep it entertaining. That's why we brought Rebecca on-board.<br />
<br />
R: I don't think anyone's noticed. Oh, is that why?<br />
<br />
J: I thought that was my job.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, I thought I was here for the intellectual vigor.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, that's we told you.<br />
<br />
R: Whoooo!<br />
<br />
S: Steve, you've earned a reputation as one of the few science writers who injects a lot of humor and satire into your writing, into the Antigravity column, and I pick up, certainly, a note of it, as well, in the Science Talk podcast as well.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, a lot of that is just, you know, I've been very fortunate to have found a way to make a living basically being a smartass.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But speaking of that. You've spoken for us before. You, and John Rennie has as well. John Rennie, of course, is the editor of Scientific American magazine, and you guys have a million and one hilarious stories from your experience with Scientific American with all of the letters and now emails that you get from readers, often irate readers. Before coming on the show you told me that you have some doozies to share with us. So why don't we get to that?<br />
<br />
SM: Well I only actually have one here that's from an irate reader, and this just came in five days ago. It's really fresh, but let me back up a little bit and tell you that whenever we run an article about evolution, which is fairly common, because the name of the magazine is Scientific American, so there are going to be evolution articles in there. And it is always surprising to us how many people who are readers of the magazine are taken aback that we apparently are still one of the last holdouts, that we still believe in this obviously discredited farce of a theory of evolution.<br />
<br />
J: How dare you!<br />
<br />
R: You're on the fringe.<br />
<br />
SM: We get these letters from people, and here, I'll won't bother to mention the email address, of course, and the subject -- apparently we did an article on a new fossil find, which I think was on our website. And here's the little note we got: "I am not 'scientifically' smart," the writer begins. The word scientifically is in quotation marks, by the way. And we could pretty much stop right there, I guess.<br />
<br />
B: Right..<br />
<br />
R: Well, okay, thank you.<br />
<br />
B: Next topic.<br />
<br />
J: With a disclaimer like that, I mean what a setup. "I'm an idiot, but let me continue."<br />
<br />
SM: But I'll share the rest with you, too. "I am not 'scientifically' smart, but can you tell me how you can claim these new fossils to be the age they are when there is evidence of human, that is ''Homo sapiens'' footprints intermingled with dinosaur footprints in numerous sites around the world, which refutes either the age of dinosaurs or the age of man, and, furthermore, the fact that fossils that were identified in the scientific world as being millions of years old are suddenly discovered to be remains of species that are still alive and well today. I guess the question I am asking is why anyone should believe 'science'?" and the word science is in quotation marks, question mark. I don't know what to say.<br />
<br />
R: I refer you to the discovery of the Flintstones by Hanna-Barbera. QED.<br />
<br />
SM: It just brings to mind we often get letters from people who bring up the same point, and they really think they've caught us in something. They write: "If humans evolve from apes, how come there are still apes? Huh? Answer that if you're so smart over there."<br />
<br />
R: You got us!<br />
<br />
B: That sound you hear is the theory of evolution collapsing.<br />
<br />
SM: (''unintelligible'') My goodness, we never thought of that, and the thousands of biologists around the world, and, you know, we shouldn't necessarily just defer to authority, but it's a lot of really smart people out there with doctorates, and they never thought of it, and you sitting at home, wherever you are, and having read maybe five or six hundred words on the subject, you figured that one out and challenged the scientific establishment with it.<br />
<br />
J: On top of that, a self-proclaimed idiot in science is going to debunk every scientist out there.<br />
<br />
S: We talked about this briefly last week about the argument from authority and how that really relates to scientific consensus and the authority of actually-working scientists, and this brings it up again. There's a certain amount of absolute arrogance combined with ignorance and naïveté about what the status of scientific information really is, to think that you have this knowledge of this piece of information that destroys an entire discipline of science and trumps the opinions of thousands of working scientists. People don't stop to think about the level of arrogance that that opinion entails.<br />
<br />
B: Hubris.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, it's a wonderful combination: arrogance and ignorance.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
SM: You put those two things together, and, you know, wow!<br />
<br />
S: That's every creationist.<br />
<br />
SM: And look all around you just for all the examples of what that combination has given us today.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, do you bother even writing back to those letters anymore?<br />
<br />
SM: You know, I tend not to write back to anybody who's sent in negative mail, but I can't help myself sometimes. I think that's the way John Rennie feels about it, as well. I'm not sure. This particular letter I read did not come to me personally. It came to the magazine, and I don't know if anyone has responded to that, but I did respond a few months ago. I had done a column concerning the penguin movie ''March of the Penguins'', right.<br />
<br />
S: March of the Penguins: an excellent movie.<br />
<br />
J: I just saw that a little while ago.<br />
<br />
SM: And you know how a lot of people picked up on that movie as being a real tribute to family values and proof of intelligent design. So I did a column about how the life history that is depicted in that movie is neither, because, for one thing, they're penguins, you know. They don't have a moral system that's comparable to humanity's. It's different. You can't look to them for your family values, and, for another thing, if you're looking at this whole business about keeping the eggs balanced on your feet in the 70 degree below-zero weather there as evidence of intelligent design, we're never going to be able to talk you out of that idea.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
SM: But I did get email from a couple of irate readers about that. One fellow said that why should they believe anything that I write, because I'm still only part ape.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
B: Touchè!<br />
<br />
R: Take that!<br />
<br />
SM: And I did write back to that fellow and said that I was grievously insulted by his categorization of me as still only part ape, because I am fully ape and proud of it.<br />
<br />
R: And technically, you are also part penguin, so maybe you do have some morals.<br />
<br />
SM: Well, I'm a biped, you know, so I have that in common.<br />
<br />
R: Kind of.<br />
<br />
SM: I have that in common. And there was another letter that came in about that that we did publish. We were going to publish the other one, the letter that accused me of being only part ape. I had the Huxley quote all ready to go, the famous Huxley retort to Bishop Wilberforce.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
SM: Because the guy actually called me part ape, it was like "What a gift!" <br />
<br />
S: A real softball.<br />
<br />
SM: If people don't know it, I have it here. Wilberforce said to Huxley in this argument that was going on about evolution shortly after the publication of ''Origin Of Species'', Wilberforce says "Is it on his grandfather's or his grandmother's side that Mr. Huxley claims descent from the apes?", or at least that's what he is alleged to have said, and then Huxley's alleged reply was "As to whether I would prefer to have a miserable ape for grandfather or a man highly-endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet who employs those faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape." So I was really excited about our running that reply in the magazine, but the fellow who wrote in apologized prior to publication, so ...<br />
<br />
B: Aaahhhh.<br />
<br />
SM: So we thought the decent thing to do was to not publicly eviscerate him like that.<br />
<br />
R: Damn your ape-like decency!<br />
<br />
SM: We did get another letter concerning that same column, and we did publish that and my reply. Let me share that with you, because that's kind of fun. This fellow from Washington state writes in: "I would appreciate it if Steve Mirsky did not jam his religion of evolution down our throats. He just cannot get off touting his religion as the only true religion, repeating his mantra again in ..." (and he names the particular column which was called the ''Trials of Life''). "Thank you," he continues, "for reprimanding Mirsky about proselytizing his personal religion instead of reporting on science." So, that was the letter we got, and we published it, and we published my reply, which was "(this fellow's name) his faith in his conclusion." Let's say his name was Smith. "Smith's faith in his conclusion that I have been reprimanded is unfounded. He causes one to ponder, however, the benefits of decreeing evolution to be a religion. Biologists could tap the vast amount of research funding suddenly available through the White House office of faith-based and community initiatives, and academic departments would receive tax exempt status. Alas, evolution remains science."<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: What these letters show, just sort of a sociological thing, is it supports at least anecdotal evidence supporting the claim that creationism hurts science in general. It's not just about the theory of evolution. That these people are absolutely confused and mudlled about what even constitutes science. And, in fact, the first letter you said he proclaimed his distrust for the institution of science based upon the issue of evolution. So we're seeing firsthand the evidence for the real pervasive harm that something like creationism does.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, absolutely.<br />
<br />
J: Do you know what I'd like to do. Next time you might want to say this to someone: "Okay, let me put a little idea in your head. Would you rather get on an airplane that was designed by engineers, or would you rather get on an airplane designed by priests?"<br />
<br />
SM: Well.<br />
<br />
J: People, I guess, they're not realizing that science permeates everything that surrounds us. I mean, our cell phones is one thing, and take any little thing: your car, everything that we've come to grow to be -- to rely on. It's a part of our daily lives. They don't get it.<br />
<br />
SM: The appliance that I like to bring up in those kinds of discussions is the toaster oven.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
SM: Just because I think it's funny, that's all. You know, something like "Well, I hope your toaster oven still works, because without science, it's not going to work."<br />
<br />
S: The other thing that's ironic about these letters: they often, while in one breath they are decrying the institution and the methods of science and also the conclusions of science with regard to evolution, but they're using scientific arguments, at least what they think are scientific arguments, to do so.<br />
<br />
SM: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: They're citing evidence of studies. Well, if science is so bad, why are you even bothering to cite scientific evidence?<br />
<br />
SM: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: It's inherent hypocrisy in their style of argument.<br />
<br />
SM: Well we get letters also from people who point out that since science changes it's mind from time to time, and you know what I mean by that. New information comes in, and you have to change your worldview based on it. Because it does that, they say "that shows you that science is inherently weak and does not offer you anything, whereas your other belief systems, which are stable and immune to new information really, you know, give you the kind of bed rock that you need in this world."<br />
<br />
J: Steve, how do you like running a podcast, and how's that going for you?<br />
<br />
SM: I really enjoy it. It's a lot of fun. I've been fortunate enough to have some entertaining and stimulating guests. We had E. O. Wilson on the podcast that went up on June 21. A couple of Nobel laureates have come on. I find scientists fascinating people to talk to in general. For the most part, they are happy to talk to journalists, and it's a very pleasant interaction, and it's a pleasant way to spend your time. I have had the experience as a journalist of chasing lawyers down courtroom steps with a microphone trying to get a comment. Science journalism is a different world. I think for the most part it's explanatory journalism rather than investigative, although there's obviously investigative journalism going on, and it has to be going on, especially with the current misuse of what appears to be scientific information in a lot of cases. But doing the podcast -- it's a lot of fun. I learn a lot. I just think that -- and it's also great to get a distillation, because, as you know, if you're working scientist, you can spend years doing research, and it might not be that interesting on a day-to-day basis, but we're fortunate. We get the essence of it that's been distilled down. So, it's a lot of fun.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I agree. I think we've had lots of venues in which to try to pursue our skeptical activism, our science education, and I think, all things considered, the podcast has been for us the most successful in terms of reaching people, and it's a very accessible format. You get to talk to a lot of very interesting people who are involved directly, either in teaching science or in doing science. Yeah, it's great.<br />
<br />
B: From all over the world.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. From all over the world.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, that, too. Yeah, you can just access the entire planet; it's terrific. Okay, I wanted to share another letter. It's one of my all-time favorites. It's not inflammatory in any way. It came in October 22, 2005. The subject line: Boy Scout letter.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: I already love it.<br />
<br />
J: I'm scared.<br />
<br />
SM: "Dear editors. Hello. I am a Boy Scout of America." (No other punctuation, by the way.) "I am writing this letter for a Scout requirement in the communications badge." (the word communications is spelled wrong.) "I think that your job must be hard, because you probably sit around ..." (probably spelled p-r-o-b-l-e-y) "You probley sit around and edit the magazine all day." (magazine spelled wrong)<br />
<br />
J: Love it!<br />
<br />
SM: "The magazine" (again spelled wrong) "that you edit it is a wonderful" (spelled wrong) "look at the world of science. I enjoy this magazine very much. Than (sic) you for your time." And then the icing on the cake: "Your viewer, David."<br />
<br />
B: Whoa! David spelled wrong.<br />
<br />
R: Wow! That's great. It's funny because it's true.<br />
<br />
SM: I just ...<br />
<br />
R: That's great.<br />
<br />
SM: It doesn't need any comment.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I know. It is what it is.<br />
<br />
R: Did you write back and see if he got the badge?<br />
<br />
S: Oh, I don't think we could. We were laughing so hard, I don't think we could control our finger movements, there.<br />
<br />
R: I'm a little curious.<br />
<br />
J: You should have told him that you would have given him an internship as long as he always wore his outfit, you know.<br />
<br />
S: A little boy scout around the office. Steve. in your latest Antigravity, and also in a recent podcast, you mentioned the topic of birding.<br />
<br />
SM: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: And in your bio, I noticed that you noted nature photography. I think it was nature photography is one of your hobbies.<br />
<br />
SM: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So are you now or have you ever been a birder?<br />
<br />
SM: Have you no sense of decency at long last? <br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
SM: I've just been wanting to say that to somebody for a long time, and it just seemed (''unintelligible''). So, yeah, I'm a birder. I love watching birds, and I do a lot of it in Florida, where my dad lives, actually. And birdwatching in Florida, it's so easy. The birds are all 4 feet tall, you know.<br />
<br />
R: And bright pink!<br />
<br />
SM: It's just fabulous: giant, great blue herons and great egrets and, you know, you do see the occasional roseate spoonbill, and I don't think I've ever seen any flamingos, actually out there, but ...<br />
<br />
R: You've never seen a flamingo out there?<br />
<br />
S: Not in the wild.<br />
<br />
SM: Not in the wild, no.<br />
<br />
R: Have you checked in the suburbs, because I've seen them all over there.<br />
<br />
SM: Really.<br />
<br />
R: They're standing on one leg.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah. Well, there are actually a couple of hundred of them, I think, within a couple miles of my house here, so.<br />
<br />
R: Well, there you go.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, because I live near the Bronx zoo, and they have a large flamingo colony.<br />
<br />
S: Part of the reason why I ask is because I'm a birder as well, I confess. Although I've only been into it for a few years, and largely to encourage my older daughter, who is now six, to get into birding and to encourage her interest in birds.<br />
<br />
SM: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: Which goes along really well with your recent Antigravity column where you talk about it as a way of introducing children to being a naturalist and into science in general. I found that to be very much the case. I mean, there's a lot of science in birding.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, and there is just the pleasure of observation of these living things, and noting their behavior, and seeing things you didn't expect to see. And actually, let me plug my podcast a little bit, because E. O. Wilson is the guest on the June 21 podcast, and he talks about how as a kid, you know, he didn't have soccer at 3 o'clock and his oboe lesson at 5 o'clock, and then at 7 o'clock the whatever else, you know how kid's lives today are like a CEO's day planner, and he was talking about the importance of just letting kids loose in nature to observe things and learn things on their own. And, you know, obviously birding is a great way to do that, I think.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I agree, because I think birds are inherently fascinating and they're beautiful. It's very easy to get kids into it, and I think they learn how to master a large body of knowledge, just on their own will, because they enjoy it, and I think that gives them some generic skills that will serve them well throughout life.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, absolutely. And just, you know, the patience and the observational skills and that whole package of sitting back and getting outside yourself a little bit and just watching things and then slowly starting to put the pieces together and learning things on your own.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
SM: You can really do that birding.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I highly recommend it. Often like on our message board, the issue came up of how to parent skeptical or scientific kids, and I think birding is a great example. I've had the experience now of getting into it late in life, and the difference -- one of the things I learned was that I was surrounded by all these species of birds that were completely invisible to me.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Now I can recognize, you know, hundreds of species of birds. I've identified at least a hundred in my own backyard, because I have a couple of feeders in my yard now.<br />
<br />
SM: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: And they were there my whole life, and maybe before I could name and recognize maybe a dozen or so or twenty species of birds, and then there were like just small black birds, you know.<br />
<br />
SM: Right "LBJs".<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
SM: LBJs: little brown jobs.<br />
<br />
S: Uhm, right. So and now I'm getting my daughter to distinguish a male from a female downy woodpecker. The power of observation that you develop is really incredible. You get attuned to these fine details you didn't even know were there before, and I think it's been a great experience for us.<br />
<br />
B: Steve and Steve, what are your favorite birds? Of all time?<br />
<br />
SM: Ha, ha, ha. My favorite bird of all time, so we can count the extinct ones you mean.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, well if there were a bunch of birds in a wrestling ring, which one would come out on top?<br />
<br />
J: There is so obviously one coolest bird out there.<br />
<br />
B: And I know it.<br />
<br />
R: What's that, Jay?<br />
<br />
J: The American Eagle.<br />
<br />
B: No, no.<br />
<br />
J: Have you ever seen one up front?<br />
<br />
S: It is a gorgeous bird.<br />
<br />
B: I have. It gorgeous and impressive. I could beat it.<br />
<br />
J: Go ahead.<br />
<br />
B: A {{w|Phorusrhacidae}}.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: What's that?<br />
<br />
B: Two and a half million years ago, known as the ''Terror Birds''.<br />
<br />
SM: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Ooh, I like that.<br />
<br />
B: Ten feet tall, a thousand pounds, could swallow a dog in one gulp.<br />
<br />
J: That's pretty cool.<br />
<br />
R: I can actually beat that, though.<br />
<br />
J: Tell me.<br />
<br />
R: I think that the all-time winner ould have to be a baby little blue penguin.<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: I mean, have you seen those things? They would melt the heart of the terror bird and it would die on the spot from the cuteness.<br />
<br />
SM: Hm.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, Steve, do you go into Central Park to do this as well?<br />
<br />
SM: You know that we did the podcast of a recording of a few people in Central Park talking about birding and about the park's ecosystem, really, and it was the first time I have ever gone birding in Central Park, and I've lived in New York all my life.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: Wow.<br />
<br />
SM: You know, one of the great things is, you don't have to go anywhere to look at birds. They're always around, and I'll just look at them in my backyard. I've done, just as an experiment, I think I mentioned it in the column that I sat out on the porch for an hour just to see how many species I'd get, and in my own backyard, which is not big, I got twenty species in an hour.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Neat.<br />
<br />
SM: And as I said, I do a lot of it in Florida at the {{w|Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge}} and some other places.<br />
<br />
S: I've been to a few down there. My parents also have a winter home down there, and Florida's wonderful. I'm also a bird photographer, but far and away my best bird picture is of a white ibis, which I just caught in a perfect frame and the perfect pose.<br />
<br />
B: It looks lika a postcard.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it really is a gorgeous bird, and it's a white bird with this downward-curving bill that's just gorgeous. You didn't get a chance to tell us your favorite bird.<br />
<br />
SM: I think I have to go with the great blue heron.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
SM: I think they're just majestic animals and ...<br />
<br />
S: Let me make one more observation about birding before we get off this topic. The interesting thing I discovered about birders is that they are really good skeptics.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, right.<br />
<br />
S: Because you talk to birders about identifying birds in the wild and how you know when you've seen a bird, and they've evolved a lot of good, hard-core skeptical rules that would sound very familiar to any skeptic.<br />
<br />
SM: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: Common birds occur commonly. If you've seen a bird it's more likely to be a common bird than a rare bird. It's more likely to be one that's in your region than not native to your region, and they have lots of rules of evidence about how clearly you saw it, did you hear its call, was there any photographic evidence, and this also came into play with the recent, apparent sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker ...<br />
<br />
SM: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... and that ensued about that. Was it really the ivory-billed? Could it have been a pileated woodpecker, and how would you know the difference? In fact, David Sibley, who is a famous bird author, wrote a chapter about this in one of his books that I read, and it's about how to be skeptical about identifying birds. Like "Wow, this is a great piece of skeptical writing," and you could apply this to eyewitness accounts of Bigfoot or Loch Ness monster.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, absolutely. If you go out in a group at Loxahatchee, multiple sightings to verify things like that. You reminded me, though. Let me tell you about a little movie that I found that I don't think at lot of people have seen. It's called ''Rare Birds'', and it gets into the other side of birding, which can be the gullibility, because the whole plot of the movie -- it's this little Canadian movie with William Hurt -- is that there's a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere that's going out of business. So they plant the idea in the media that they have sighted a bird there that shouldn't be there. So it's an ''exotic''. And, you know how birders can be. They start coming in from all over the world to try to see this bird, and the plan is that once they arrive, that will save the restaurant, because it's the only place they'll be able to eat when they're there. So it's really a cute, funny, little movie, and I highly recommend it.<br />
<br />
J: Well I own a parrot, so I love birds. I'm a total bird fan.<br />
<br />
R: Do you?<br />
<br />
J: I love birds. Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: I didn't know you had a parrot.<br />
<br />
J: I have a red Lord Amazon.<br />
<br />
SM: I did a parrot article a few, uh, couple of years ago, because they found a diary of Einstein's housekeeper or a friend of Einstein who said that she had given Einstein a parrot for his seventy-fifth birthday, and do you remember any of this? This was in the news a couple of years ago, I think.<br />
<br />
S: I missed that.<br />
<br />
B: Is it still alive?<br />
<br />
SM: Well, that's about as far as the information that we got goes, but you know that, as you said, the parrot can outlive you. And so we thought about what if that parrot was still alive? And what if it spent a lot of time with Einstein?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah. Right.<br />
<br />
SM: You can find that article in the Scientific American archive.<br />
<br />
R: Way to work that in.<br />
<br />
J: Wouldn't that be funny if locked away somewhere in that parrot's head there was some equation that scientists would drool over.<br />
<br />
SM: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Sorry, Steve. What's that web address again.<br />
<br />
SM: That's sciamdigital.com.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you. I'm going to look that up right now.<br />
<br />
B: He's got his podcast voice on.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's cool. I actually -- I love that. That's the great thing about the Internet is that you can just call up stuff like that.<br />
<br />
SM: And do you know something? That article, that column is, I believe, less than three years old, which means it still should be available on our regular website sciam.com, free for nothing.<br />
<br />
R: Excellent.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, do you have a favorite skeptic out there, like Penn and Teller or Randi or ...<br />
<br />
R: Besides me.<br />
<br />
SM: Well, does Dawkins count?<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
SM: I like Dawkins a lot. I like Penn a lot, although I was disappointed in a program he did where he had some good things to say about some people who I don't think necessarily deserve it. I wish I could be more specific, but it had to do with -- there was a certain congressman who he kind of buddied up to who was trying to do some evisceration to the Endangered Species Act, I believe.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, I think I know who you are talking about.<br />
<br />
SM: And there were property rights involved.<br />
<br />
R: A Libertarian?<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, exactly, his libertarian streak had gotten the better of him on that issue, I think.<br />
<br />
S: It has on a couple of issues. Usually when I don't completely agree with their take on topics, like on their Showtime show ''Bullshit'', it's because they're pushing some libertarian agenda.<br />
<br />
SM: Yeah, it was that. And Randi, of course, is great. I know you've had him on your podcast a couple of times, and ...<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
SM: ... I actually -- I went to a talk he gave it a AAAS meeting in Washington. It must be about ten years ago at this point. AAAS -- American Association for the Advancement of Science. And I happened to sit in the seat, in the audience, that he had planted part of this trick he did, under, so I wound up being the guy who had to help him with the trick, and I have no idea how he did what he did, and it was just amazing. And, wouldn't you know, wouldn't it be Randy's greatest trick if he really was a magician, and he's just going around telling people that there's a natural explanation for everything he does?<br />
<br />
R: He's been accused of that on multiple occasions, and so, yes, not quite as crazy as it you might expect.<br />
<br />
B: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: (''unintelligible'') Well, we are -- actually, this went very quickly.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, wow!<br />
<br />
S: We are actually running out of time.<br />
<br />
R: Aw!<br />
<br />
S: Steve, we really enjoyed having you on our podcast.<br />
<br />
SM: Oh, it's my pleasure.<br />
<br />
S: We hope to have you back again, and before we get rid of you, I wanted to mention that you will be talking for the New England Skeptical Society on Saturday, July 15. So, if any of our listeners out there are in the New England area in mid-July in Connecticut, specifically, check out the NESS website for specific directions and time, etc., but Steve Mirsky's going to be talking to us live and in person.<br />
<br />
SM: You know, the New England area, what are you talking about? Caribou, Maine? People are not coming down from there.<br />
<br />
S: They will come.<br />
<br />
R: You'd be surprised.<br />
<br />
S: This is not far people from Maine.<br />
<br />
SM: That's got to be 300,000 miles away.<br />
<br />
B: 300,000!<br />
<br />
R: (''Maine accent'') "You can't get there from heyah".<br />
<br />
B: Farther than the Moon.<br />
<br />
SM: And I say 300,000 miles, because I think that has to do with birding and an episode of {{w|The Honeymooners}}, where Ed Norton says that that bird shouldn't be within 300,000 miles of here, which is just a really funny thing to say.<br />
<br />
R: You win for the most obscure joke of the night. Good job!<br />
<br />
B: There you go.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, I look forward to meeting you in person. I'll see you up there.<br />
<br />
SM: Likewise.<br />
<br />
S: All right, Steve. Well, thanks again. It was a pleasure.<br />
<br />
B: Thank you.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Steve.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, if you need a lift, give us a call.<br />
<br />
SM: Okay.<br />
<br />
J: We live right near you.<br />
<br />
SM: Oh, perfect.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Take care.<br />
<br />
SM: You, too<br />
<br />
S: Well, again, very enjoyed having Steve Mirsky on the show. He always very enjoyable<br />
to talk to, and I'm looking forward to his lecture for us on July 15.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a really cool guy. He lives pretty close to us, too. I didn't know that.<br />
<br />
B: We've got to have him back soon.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Let's!<br />
<br />
S: Definitely. He's a good, funny guy. One of the few real humorists writing science columns. Well, let's do a Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(60:30)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts. Two are genuine, and one is fictitious, and I challenge both the audience and my esteemed panel of skeptics to figure out which one is the fake. Now there's a theme this week -- haven't had a theme in a little while. These are three news items all coming out of Georgia Tech. Guys down at Georgia Tech have been quite busy. You ready?<br />
<br />
J: Let's do it.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Item number one: Georgia Tech researchers have developed a fuel combustion engine that produces almost zero emissions. Item number two: Georgia Tech researchers have developed a system to identify and neutralize digital video and still cameras to prevent unwanted photography. And item number three: Georgia Tech researchers together with a team from IBM announced the creation of the the first terrahertz silicon germanium transistor. Jay, why don't you go first?<br />
<br />
J: I'll pick the pentawater one. That's bullshit. Okay, let's review these again.<br />
<br />
P: Zero emission engines, unwanted photos, digital photos, and a fancy transistor.<br />
<br />
J: The zero emission engine, Steve, can you tell me what the fuel type is?<br />
<br />
S: Any combustion fuel. Any fuel that you can combust in a combustion chamber.<br />
<br />
J: Zero emission engine.<br />
<br />
S: You know, like gasoline.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, okay.<br />
<br />
S: Or rocket fuel or jet fuel, you know.<br />
<br />
J: I think I'm not going to pick that one. The second one was they can neutralize any kind of ...<br />
<br />
S: Identify and neutralize digital cameras, video or still.<br />
<br />
J: That's bullshit. Nope. I pick that one.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. All right. Perry?<br />
<br />
P: That one's true, about the digital cameras. I saw the story. I don't know if the tech actually works, but I'll tell you, if it does, they're going to make a lot of money. That's a great piece of technology. Zero emissions, combustibles, and that fancy transistor. I don't know enough about it. We do so much of that stuff nowadays, you know, it doesn't seem that spectacular. I'll go with the zero emissions. If you can burn gasoline with no emissions, I'd like to see that.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I agree with Perry. I feel a little dirty. I also read the article about the digital and the thing. I agree that the zero emissions thing sounds way too good to be true, because if that were true, I think that ...<br />
<br />
S: Almost zero. It says almost zero.<br />
<br />
R: Almost zero?<br />
<br />
J: Oh, that was almost zero.<br />
<br />
R: Meh. Well then that's relative. I'm still going to say that is a little too good to be true.<br />
<br />
S: Alrighty. Okay, Bob?<br />
<br />
B: Tell me the third one again, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Georgia Tech researchers together with a team from IBM announced the creation of the first terahertz silicon germanium transistor. So this is a 1000 GHz, and to put this in perspective, the computers that we're running today are like 2 to 3 GHz.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's baloney. The first one, yeah, they did do that. They did create a combustion engine with close to zero emissions. Something about mixing it with oxygen. I thought that had been done before. I'm not sure why that would produce close to zero emissions, but, apparently, it's true. The digital nullifier is true. They somehow detect the CCD on, say, a camera. They can detect it, and then they basically shine like a light into it, a laser light or something to completely swamp it, and I'm not sure how well that would work, but that's pretty much the idea behind it. So three must be false. Doesn't sound right.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, well someone's been reading the science sites recently. We'll just take them in order. Number one is, in fact, true.<br />
<br />
R: Damn!<br />
<br />
S: Georgia Tech researchers have made an almost-zero emission combustion chamber.<br />
<br />
R: I actually got one wrong. Oh, no!<br />
<br />
S: You did.<br />
<br />
B: Back to zero.<br />
<br />
S: You broke your record.<br />
<br />
P: It wasn't to me, you dunce.<br />
<br />
S: The emissions that they're talking about are nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide, which are primary causes of air pollution, and those are basically produced from inefficiency in the burning process. You want to completely burn the fuel with oxygen to get the most energy out of it and to produce the least amount of contaminants, of emissions. The basic point with this technology -- Bob, you were pretty much on there -- is that because of the shape of the chamber and the way they work the airflow, that they keep an even temperature throughout the burning process. Usually it's hot spots in the burning of the combustion chamber that produces ...<br />
<br />
B: Right. And it's low temperatures, isn't it Steve. It's not really high temperature.<br />
<br />
S: Low temperature. It's a lower temperature burning. Its more evenly distributed. There's no hotspots in the combustion chamber, and that minimizes the emissions to almost zero. And NASA has been working on this, and, actually, the real breakthrough here -- it's not like the first time that anyone has developed this kind of chamber, but they designed in a way that's actually feasible for large-scale manufacturing, like you could actually have one of these things in a car or a jet, not just on a NASA project. Let's go to number two. Number two was the system to neutralize digital and video cameras, and, yes, that is also true. Several of you read that on the news items recently. Bob was correct. Basically, the use like a laser to scan a small area like a movie theater, theoretically, or a high-tech lab where you want to prevent espionage, and it picks up the camera CCD. It has like a three stage scanning process. One just to see the reflection that may be a CCD, and then it hones in on it, and it identifies the type of reflection to show that it's actually a CCD, and then it shines a white light that would wash out any photography, either still or video, without causing any biological harm, so it won't make you go blind or something if it hits you in the eye, apparently. Definitely the theaters, the film industry would be very interested in this to prevent pirating of movies, and any place where you would not want photography in order to avoid, say, industrial or other types of espionage would be interested in this kind ...<br />
<br />
R: Nude beaches.<br />
<br />
S: Nude beaches, though that's kind of a bigger venue. So number three is a fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Now, Steve, did you twist that number three from another IBM advance that basically they created a 500 GHz chip?<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
B: Okay. That's where you got that from.<br />
<br />
S: This is basically the exact same headline, but I went from 500 GHz, which is a half a terahertz, to a full terahertz. I doubled it.<br />
<br />
R: You sneaky bastard.<br />
<br />
B: You also changed chip to transistor.<br />
<br />
S: No, that was the title of the article.<br />
<br />
B: Really.<br />
<br />
S: It's a silicon germanium transistor.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: They broke the 500 GHz or half a terahertz mark, although, to get those speeds, which again is about 250 times as fast as what's currently being mass-produced -- to get those speeds, though, you have to supercool it. At room temperatures, it's comes down to about 350 GHz, which is still quite impressive.<br />
<br />
B: That is.<br />
<br />
P: A snail! Snail-like.<br />
<br />
S: What this shows -- this is a prototype. It's not the kind of thing that you could mass-produce, yet. But what this just shows theoretically is that the silicon technology has a long way to go before we hit any physical limits, that Moore's law is still well on track with the silicon technology, that we're going to continue to double transistor speeds.<br />
<br />
P: I didn't know there was a botany component, though. Geranium?<br />
<br />
B: Geranium?<br />
<br />
S: Germanium.<br />
<br />
P: Isn't that what people in Germany speak?<br />
<br />
R: Stooopppp!<br />
<br />
B: Oh, man.<br />
<br />
R: Stop! It hurts!<br />
<br />
B: Steve, that might get us a couple more generations, but it's just putting off the inevitable.<br />
<br />
S: It's true. I wouldn't mind having half-a terahertz on my desk. I'd be happy with that.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: At least this decade. So number three was fake. Number one and number two are correct. Bob got this week's correct.<br />
<br />
J: I knew the answer, too.<br />
<br />
R: Uh, uh.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, you broke your long streak of getting them correct.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, well I just want to, you know, I don't want anybody to think I'm cheating, so I need to throw one every now and then.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you need this for the street cred, right?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Puzzle <small>(69:34)</small> == <br />
<br />
S: So I wanted to introduce a new segment to the podcast this week. I like to experiment with different segments and see how they work. I would just like to end the show with a very brief skeptical puzzle or brain teaser, and these could be either bits of skeptical trivia or actual logic puzzles or whatnot. I'll the give the puzzle at the end of this show, and the next week we'll give the answer. So you guys are not going to be guessing this week. You'll just be listening and commenting on how cool it is.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you for that instruction.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. Here's the puzzle.<br />
<br />
R: (''sarcastically'') Oh, that's cool!<br />
<br />
J: Number three.<br />
<br />
R: Sorry.<br />
<br />
S: This is a puzzle about two men. Both of these men were Freemasons. Man A invented an instrument that Man B used as part of a pseudoscience that he invented. Man A also famously debunked the claims of Man B. The puzzle is: who were these two men and what was the instrument? So we will leave you with that conundrum until next week.<br />
<br />
R: Fascinating. That was very cool, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: I hope you guys enjoyed that.<br />
<br />
P: Highly, highly cool.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Steve.<br />
<br />
== Announcements ==<br />
=== Message Board Update <small>(60:57)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So the message board has been increasingly active. The audience is growing and growing, and there's lots of lively discussions on there. If you have not joined our message board yet, please give it a look. Sign up just to read the entries or participate. Our web site is continuing to evolve and to expand, both of the Skeptics' Guide website and the NESS website, so pay us a visit.<br />
<br />
=== NESS Talks <small>(61:21)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: As I said before when we had Steve Mirsky on, he's going to be speaking for us. If you are going to be in the New England or Connecticut area on Saturday, July 15, he'll be speaking at the next New England Skeptical Society meeting, and the Saturday after that, on July 22, if you're going to be in the Boston area -- Rebecca is hosting a NESS talk in Boston.<br />
<br />
R: Yes, you can actually meet me.<br />
<br />
J: Clothing optional.<br />
<br />
S: All the details will be on the NESS website. The lecturer for the July 22 meeting in Boston, I hear rumors that this is a skeptical activist with years of experience both lecturing and talking about skeptical topics, and he's going to ...<br />
<br />
R: Sometimes interesting skeptical topics, too.<br />
<br />
S: Sometimes. The host of the number one skeptical podcast out there, and we'll be talking on intelligent design.<br />
<br />
P: Yep, Art Bell. Can't wait.<br />
<br />
S: So, get your plane tickets now. Again, thanks again for joining me guys. Always a good time.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Steve. See you next week.<br />
<br />
P: See you next week.<br />
<br />
J: Good night.<br />
<br />
S: Until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_48&diff=10149SGU Episode 482015-09-09T05:28:47Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Herbs for Menopause <small>()</small> ===<br />
* www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/health/20meno.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=login<br />
<br />
=== Anne Coulter and Evolution <small>()</small> ===<br />
* <br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Penta Water <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>Hello, my name is Derek Ross. I was wondering of you have ever herd of Penta water or somthing like it. This stuff really cracks me up: www.pentawater.com<br/><br/>'Is Penta really a new composition of matter?<br/>Yes. Penta displays characteristics unique from other water, including a higher boiling point, higher surface tension, and a lower viscosity.'<br/><br/>Derek Ross<br/></blockquote><br />
<br />
=== Alcoholism <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>Hello to all,<br/><br/>I want to start by saying that I love the Podcast. I am not a scientist nor do I play one on T.V., but I can sense BS a mile off and enjoy listening to like minded thinkers.<br/><br/>During my teen years I was 'diagnosed' as an Alcoholic and spent many years using that as an excuse to continue drinking. At that time I spent most days and nights drunk. At age 28 I decided to take ownership of my life and insisted that I was no longer an alcoholic and to put a stop to it. Now at 43 I am still sober and loving life.<br/><br/>Is Alcoholism a real disease as is the common wisdom, or is it a lot of BS and pandering to people in an overly PC society.<br/><br/>On a side note, is there a chance that Rebecca will make a Bikini or Lingerie Calendar any time soon, you could donate the proceeds to science education.<br/><br/>Best Regards, from a true fan of Rebecca<br/><br/>Frank Nameche<br/>New Boston, NH USA<br/></blockquote><br />
<br />
== Interview with Steve Mirsky <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Steve Mirsky is the author of Antigravity, a monthly column in Scientific American magazine (www.sciam.com/directory.cfm?chanID=sa006&dirID=15). In his column he offers satirical commentary on science and culture.<br/><br/>He is now also the host of Science Talk, the podcast of Scientific American magazine (www.sciam.com/podcast/).<br/><br/>Mirsky came to the field of science writing and podcasting after testing other waters-a degree from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and acting in summer stock, followed by a bachelors from CUNY and a masters in chemistry from Cornell. As a budding chemist he won a AAAS Mass Media Fellowship, which he spent at a Miami TV station. As a Knight Fellow, Mirsky plans to focus on evolutionary theory. His hobbies include wildlife photography and playing the clarinet.<br/><br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
Question #1: Georgia Tech researchers have developed a fuel combustion engine that produces almost zero emissions.<br />
Question #2: Georgia Tech researchers have developed a system to identify and neutralize digital video and still cameras, to prevent unwanted photography.<br />
Question #3: Georgia Tech researchers, together with a team from IBM, announced the creation of the first Terahertz silicon-germanium transistor.<br />
== Skeptical Puzzle <small>()</small> == <br />
<blockquote>This is a new segment. We present a skeptically-themed puzzle at the end of the podcast, and will reveal the answer next episode.<br/><br/><br/>Two men, both were freemasons:<br/>Man A invented an instrument that Man B used as part of a pseudoscience that he invented.<br/><br/>Man A also famously debunked the claims of Man B.<br/><br/>Who were the two men, and what was the instrument?<br/></blockquote> <br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=10148Template:SGU episode list2015-09-08T22:21:01Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 47 as done, 48 as in progress.</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
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Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
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Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2014|2014]], [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2015"><big>'''2015'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 529]], Aug 29 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 528]], Aug 22 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 527]], Aug 15 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 526]], Aug 8 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 525]], Aug 1 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 524]], Jul 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 523]], Jul 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 522]], Jul 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 521]], Jul 4 2015 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 520]], Jun 27 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 519]], Jun 20 2015 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 518]], Jun 13 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 517]], Jun 6 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 516]], May 30 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 10-Hour Show]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"| <span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_47&diff=10147SGU Episode 472015-09-08T22:18:46Z<p>Jim Gibson: Finish transcription.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 47 <br />
|episodeDate = 14<sup>th</sup> June 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:evolution101.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y <br />
|bob = y <br />
|jay = y <br />
|evan = y <br />
|guest1 = ZM: Zachary Moore<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2006-06-14.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,69.0.html<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, June 14, 2006. This is your host, Steven Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Hello!<br />
<br />
S: ... Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hey everybody!<br />
<br />
J: ... Jay Novella, ...<br />
<br />
J: Hey, hey, hey!<br />
<br />
S: ... and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good evening, all my friends.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Motorola patents feng-shui device <small>(00:38)</small>===<br />
S: So have you guys heard about Motorola's new fancy device that they have just patented?<br />
<br />
B: Yeaaah! Cool!<br />
<br />
S: They have patented a ''{{w|Feng shui}}'' device.<br />
<br />
R: Oh my god! Are you serious?<br />
<br />
S: It actually, it measures the ''feng-shuiness'' of your environment and tells you where you need to move your furniture and stuff.<br />
<br />
J: How does it tell you where to move your furniture? What?<br />
<br />
E: Whatever Motorola is doing it for, I'll do it for you at half price, whatever they're charging.<br />
<br />
S: Right!<br />
<br />
R: I have a very small studio apartment. I'm just wondering &mdash; there's really nowhere else for things to go. (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
E: You're thinking inside the box, Rebecca, you have to think outside the box. <br />
<br />
B: Is ''feng shui'' that popular?<br />
<br />
S: Oh, so, ''feng shui'', for those in the audience who may not know what it is, is an eastern tradition where they basically &mdash; it's pure magical thinking. It's the notion that luck and health and money and things like this are forces and energies in your environment, and they can either flow into your life, or into your house, or away from you according to how you might arrange your furniture.<br />
<br />
J: Ancient Chinese secret.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean, it's really ...<br />
<br />
J: Stupid, say it, Steve. It's stupid!<br />
<br />
J: It's probably one of the dumbest things out there!<br />
<br />
S: It is! It's one of the absolute dumbest things. It's pure magical thinking. There's just nothing else to say about it.<br />
<br />
J: Feng shui: isn't one of the things that you can't sweep. You have to sweep everything to the center of a room, because you can't sweep anything outside the house.<br />
<br />
E: There are no parameters.<br />
<br />
B: That's part of it. It's a flow of energy. You want to have the flow of energy, you know, I guess, going in the right direction and stuff like that. The funny thing is, though, that this device, it doesn't, like, detect the ''qi'', and determine the nature or the energy and where it's going. It uses radio signals!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah!<br />
<br />
B: It says "Okay, here's where the radio signals are, so that, hopefully, that's correlated with positive ''Qi''. So that's what it's based on.<br />
<br />
R: So wait, you are saying it doesn't even detect ''Qi''? I mean ...<br />
<br />
E: God!<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
E: Oh there's ''Qi''!<br />
<br />
R: What a ripoff!<br />
<br />
S: It says weak radio signals indicate positive ''Qi'', but strong signals means negative ''Qi''. And I don't know, how did they figure that out?<br />
<br />
B: Right! Not only that, so if you have positive ''Qi'', then you have a bad connection for your cellphone.<br />
<br />
S: Right!<br />
<br />
R: That's not very lucky.<br />
<br />
J: Wait, is Motorola ran by a bunch of retards?<br />
<br />
S: I think they're ran by the same executives who were running Florsheim, those numbers of years ago, when they put out the magnetic insoles to help with the circulation in your feet. Remember that?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah. That's right.<br />
<br />
E: Of course!<br />
<br />
R: I think they're ran by people who like to make a lot of money regardless of the consequences.<br />
<br />
S: And who think that their average customer is a moron.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, they're appealing to the California crowd.<br />
<br />
B: They see a niche. They see a niche, and they want to tap into it. Damn logic and science.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and they make stuff up: "Ah, we'll just mesure radio waves, because we can, and we'll call it ''Qi'' and we'll sell it as a feng shui device!"<br />
<br />
E: It's foolproof.<br />
<br />
R: Why not?<br />
<br />
B: Wouldn't you think that feng shui purists would say: "Hey! That's not how that works!"<br />
<br />
J: I'm sure they will, Bob!<br />
<br />
S: Like there are feng shui purists. Bob, the people who are selling their services as feng shui consultants &mdash; they're just making it up out of the top of their heads anyway. They don't agree with each other anyway. They just give you completely different readings.<br />
<br />
J: No, no Steve!<br />
<br />
R: There's a great episode of Bull$hit about that, actually, when they invited three different feng shui consultants, and they each did entirely different set-ups for the houses.<br />
<br />
J: Right, there are things that are standard. There are things like facing. <br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Everything has to be lined up, I believe, to the north properly, or something along those lines.<br />
<br />
R: But even then, they bend their own little rules, and they don't know.<br />
<br />
B: True, there's a lot of differences between the various feng shui experts, but I'd think all of them would agree that it's not radio signals. That's the only point I'm trying to make.<br />
<br />
R: I don't know. I think that they'll probably line up behind anything that looks like it gives them some shred of legitimacy.<br />
<br />
E: Well, my acupuncturist told me. He must know!<br />
<br />
J: Steve! I think this could be classified under like one of those things that people think are fun, maybe at least in the United States.<br />
<br />
S: I don't think people shell out five thousand dollars to a feng-chui consultant because it's fun. I think that they might do it because it's a status symbol, so they can say that they, whatever, that their house is feng shui.<br />
<br />
E: Or when our governments waste our tax money by hiring feng shui experts to come in and tell them how to construct new government buildings and those sorts of things.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah!<br />
<br />
E: That's not very funny at all.<br />
<br />
J: Wait! That happens?<br />
<br />
E: In Connecticut it happened.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yes, it did.<br />
<br />
E: It happened here in Hartford.<br />
<br />
J: Oh my God!<br />
<br />
S: They were embarrassed out of it ultimately, but they did spend tax payers' money on a feng shui consultant.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, they could say: "Yea, I'm Feng Shui 1.0 Compliant".<br />
<br />
E: Ha ha ha.<br />
<br />
J: I have to go shoot myself right now. I can't take that.<br />
<br />
E: Well, don't do that Jay. Stick around and listen to the next item.<br />
<br />
J: I'll finish (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
R: Besides, you're gonna get blood all over your carpet, and that's not good for your Qi!<br />
<br />
J: That's right! You're right! Thank you, Rebecca!<br />
<br />
R: See?<br />
<br />
J: You saved me again.<br />
<br />
=== Larry Summer Followup <small>(05:43)</small>===<br />
S: Now, Rebecca, you blogged about this recently. It's about the one year anniversary of the Larry Summers now infamist comment about women academics at Harvard.<br />
<br />
R: Well, it's not the one year anniversary of the comment. The comment would have been back in January.<br />
<br />
S: Is that right?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I think it was around like, January, February of 2005. We're actually at the one year mark of the creation of the department that he made to kind of soothe over the hubbub, and it's specifically for increasing diversity among the Harvard faculty.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: So it's been about a year since that was setup. So they just did a report going over what they've accomplished over the past year and what they plan to accomplish in the coming year.<br />
<br />
J: So what did he say?<br />
<br />
R: He was asked to give a speech explaining some of the current hypothesis concerning why there's not a high percentage of women in the upper echelons of academia, specially when it comes to the sciences. And he went over a few different hypothesis, one of which was, basically, women might just not have the same mental capabilities as men to do science.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: And, of course, that pissed off a lot of people, and there's a lot of bad publicity over it, and it was about a year after that, it was back in February that he announced that he was going to resign his position. And he didn't say it was specifically because of that, but ...<br />
<br />
S: But that's what it was.<br />
<br />
R: ... speculation (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
J: Well, I'd like to as everyone's opinion. Is there any validity to that? Did anyone do a real study? What's the consensus here?<br />
<br />
S: That is clearly a thorny issue, because it is so political. But I'm a neuroscientist. I have sort of some sense of what this literature shows, and my reading of it is that in the last 20-30 years there have been quite a few studies comparing the &mdash; if you just step back a minute and not think about any particular ability, but just if you look at the male and female brains, they definitely are different. They definitely function different. They're organized differently in a number of ways that have been clearly established. For example, the female brain is more bilaterally redundant than the male brain. Male functions, especially with language, tend to lateralize a lot more to one side, where women will utilize both sides of their brain more.<br />
<br />
J: So does that mean that women may be more adapt at language than men?<br />
<br />
S: Well, that is a possibility, and there is some evidence to support that. So I think the thing that is interesting about this, again, is partly how politicized it gets. There are those at one extreme who think that any suggestion that there's any difference between men and women, it makes you a fascist, and they really get very emotionally upset at the barest suggestion of it. And I think that that is a very counter-productive end of the spectrum. Of course, at the other end of the spectrum there's some hold over sexism, but I do think that is significantly on the wane, at least in our society. Obviously in other parts of the world they're very, very different. What it comes down to, and I think this is really what the Larry Summer comment comes down to is: in our present day society, how much of the differences of distribution of men and women in different professions is due to past or current prejudice, and how much of it is due to a self sorting? How much of it is due to the fact that men and women may have different likes and dislikes and may have different aptitudes statistically, and you have to remember that even a slight difference aptitude on average, which could mean that 98% of men and 98% of women are not any different from each other. But even if there's a slight, slight difference, then at the very top of ability, there could be a huge over-representation of one over the other. <br />
<br />
R: Well, and then, Steve, it's not just &mdash; the option isn't just whether or not it's genetic, I mean, there's another option besides genetic and bias.<br />
<br />
B: Well, cultural!<br />
<br />
R: Yea, there's just the fact that women could be raised from birth to just not be interested in science. It could be the way that they're being taught, the way that we're influenced.<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
J: I'm sure there has a part in it<br />
<br />
R: I mean, there are millions of different possibilities there, and discounting any one just because someone thinks that it might be sexist, it's absurd! There shouldn't be any hypothesis that we dismiss out of hand without at least taking a look at.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
J: Did that guy, last year, say something very derogatory and negative? Did he say that women are not as intelligent as men in that way, or was he talking about ...<br />
<br />
R: Not at all! No, you can see the whole speech he gave online, and I linked to it through my blog. I've posted about Summers a number of times, and if you read through his speech, it's not at all derogatory, and it certainly doesn't sound like he's coming from a sexist place.<br />
<br />
S: No.<br />
<br />
R: It sounds like he's saying "people are researching the problem, and here are some of the theories they've got going." He's not saying he subscribes to any one of them. He's just putting them out there, because that's what he was asked to do for his speech, and I think that that's &mdash; and if people disagree with that hypothesis, I think the correct response should never be "That' sexist, shut up", it should be "Here's why you're wrong."<br />
<br />
S: Uhum...<br />
<br />
R: "Here's the evidence that says you're wrong"<br />
<br />
S: Right, I agree. I agree.<br />
<br />
R: If there's evidence that says it's not true then, you know, show the evidence, don't ...<br />
<br />
S: It's interesting. My personal opinion, having looked at the evidence and thinking about this for a while, is that there are still some cultural and historical forces at work in terms of the penetration of males and females in different professions, but I do think that we're moving towards a distribution that's more and more self-selective. I think that in our country, as women are more free to pursue the careers that they want, that they are winding up in careers that are more amenable to their desires and their talents. For example, women are overtaking men in the healthcare profession. They have no problem penetrating any corner of the healthcare profession. There are other fields which, and the reason why I think that there is a huge genetic component to this, is because when we see which fields women are not making gains in, like engineering, that tends to fit quite well with the basic neuroscience, which is showing that women don't like engineering. It's not that they're not necessarily good at it, they just really don't like it to the same degree that men do. So maybe it's not that surprising that they're not penetrating that field. From a practical point of view, what this means is, should we just do everything we can to make sure that both men and women are free to pursue whatever career that they want, or do we have to at the top end work from the top down to make the numbers look good? Do we have to force women into fields that they're not going in to spontaneously, or have some kind of affirmative action to make the numbers look good?<br />
<br />
J: Sounds like bussing to me. That's ridiculous.<br />
<br />
R: I don't think that you're going to force women into positions, though.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the way you do that is with quotas. Right? Should you set up quotas, so that, specially like, in the upper echelons of academia, to make sure that 50% of women are in engineering departments?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: That's the practical point of view, and I think if you look at all the evidence and if you look at what's happened, it's probably better to work from the bottom up to just make sure that there's no glass ceiling, that women do whatever they want.<br />
<br />
J: Well, I'll speak for all software engineers out there. We want more women in the field. Absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Yea, good luck with that, Jay. And that's pretty much what Harvard's new office is working on. One of the mains things I noticed from the report they put out, they really seem to be focusing on improving the lifestyle of students and faculty who choose to have families, like increase funding to child care facilities and child care scholarships and things like that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, which is excellent. It's all excellent.<br />
<br />
R: Definitely, because speaking to women who are in academia, I hear that a lot, like, "you make a choice: either you're going to have a family and therefore go into private industry, or you're gonna go into academia and give up hopes of having a family."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, definitely the plainfield needs to be leveled in terms of just biological functions, absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Right. Women shouldn't have to make a choice when it comes to that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I do, although, one final comment is I do find it a little ironic that while there's still so much concern about making sure that women have a fair shake in academia, if you look at the younger generations, women are kicking guys' butts in school. I mean, they are.<br />
<br />
R: Indeed, they are.<br />
<br />
S: They develop academic skills at a younger age. Their temperament and what not, it seems to serve them better during the school years than boys. Boys tend to have shorter attention spans and are more distractible, whatever.<br />
<br />
R: Also boys are smelly and have germs.<br />
<br />
E: Good.<br />
<br />
S: You know, in thirty or forty years, you know, we may be &mdash; the roles may be totally reversed and we may be having to talk very seriously about how we could get more guys into academia.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But, we will see.<br />
<br />
=== Stephen Hawking on Space Travel <small>(16:05)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: One final news item, and this is just a quick follow-up to last week's podcast. We had talked to Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, about manned space flight, and he was very much in favor of NASA funding manned space flight as opposed to just robotic space exploration, and his primary justification for that was that we need to colonize other worlds so that we don't have all of our eggs in this one basket called Earth. By coincidence, Stephen Hawking has &mdash; I don't know if it was a lecture or an article that he wrote &mdash; but he has come out very much in favor of manned space flight, and for the very same reason that Phil Plait cited, was that we need to colonize worlds other than the Earth. He writes that the survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe, because there is an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth. So I just thought that was interesting because it was right on the heels of last week's podcast where we made that point. <br />
<br />
R: See Phil? Just as smart as Stephen Hawking.<br />
<br />
S: Steve Hawking. Absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
== Questions and emails <small>(17:09)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Let's do a couple of emails, and then we do have an interview this week. We have an interview with Zachary Moore, who does the Evolution 101 podcast. We'll be getting to that in a moment. But first a few emails.<br />
<br />
=== Consensus on Global Warming <small>(17:24)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Email number one comes from Mark Goddard, who simply gives his location as "The US". Mark writes: <br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I would like to inform Mr. Novella that consensus is not a scientific term. He should make his decisions based on evidence, rather than basing them on a consensus. I thought that's what skeptics were supposed to do. It would also serve Mr. Novella well to reacquaint himself with his list of logical fallacies, as argument for the existence and seriousness of anthropogenic global warming is clearly reliant on the argument from authority. He believes in global warming because there is a consensus.<br />
<br />
Real skeptics follow the evidence. I suggest that Steve do some actual research before reaching a conclusion, and if he finds some evidence to support his predetermined conclusion, then he should discuss that on the show. Evidence for or against the idea of global warming would be more informative than a broken-record repetition of "consensus, consensus, consensus.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well, thanks for writing the email, Mark. We appreciate the question and the feedback. And this is an excellent topic, because we deal with this issue quite a bit, and it really gets to the heart, I think, of scientific skepticism. So I do think that there's a difference between the argument from authority and having an appropriate level of respect for a consensus of scientific opinion, because, honestly, most of us, all we have in the areas outside of our, whatever, our narrow field of expertise &mdash; and if you're not a working scientist that's all areas of science &mdash; is a distillation from the consensus of scientific opinion. I think that if you think that your own personal reading of the evidence somehow supersedes that, that is incredibly arrogant. And actually at the same time, it's naive. I mean, it really means that you don't understand the gulf that exists between the amount of information that we have as laypeople versus the amount of information that scientists at the cutting edge of any discipline have. So, to look at this another way: when I am conveying a consensus of a scientific opinion, I'm not saying that "this claim is true because there is a consensus." I'm saying there's a consensus because it's probably true. And the reason why I can say that, my premise to this is that if you have a mature scientific discipline where there has been decades of robust, transparent, open-debate about an issue, a specific question, or a specific scientific discipline, and a fairly solid consensus emerges from the evidence and the research and the debate, that consensus is very highly reliable. It's not necessarily true. It can be wrong. Science is always tentative and contingent and is amenable to revision if new evidence or ways of thinking about things comes to light, but we can rely to some degree on a hard-earned, robust consensus of scientific opinion. At the very least, if you disagree with that consensus, you better have a damned good reason for doing so. And dismissing it as an argument from authority is not appropriate. And that is an actual abuse of that logical fallacy. I do think where people get into trouble with the Argument from Authority is investing authority in an individual scientist. Any individual can be biased, quirky, can just be wrong for whatever reason, but when you have a community of scientists hammering out the issues over a long period of time, there is some legitimate authority that you can invest in that. <br />
<br />
J: So in other words, the consensus here is that this guy is a jerk?<br />
<br />
S: No, I think this is a very common misunderstanding about the Argument from Authority, but, again, if you do take it to that extreme, to say that basically you can never refer to the scientific community, the opinion of either the scientific community as a whole or specific organizations that have panels of experts that have reviewed the evidence and come to some consensus opinion. If you just routinely dismiss all of those, then what do we have, again, to rely upon? Again, I think that it's arrogant to think that as a layperson who hasn't spent a career studying this data, who isn't intimately familiar with the technical literature, that your opinion somehow can supersede those of scientists that breathe this data.<br />
<br />
J: Well, he said that you have no evidence, Steve. He flat out said that you're just ...<br />
<br />
S: Well, he did, he also made a few assumptions in his last paragraph there. He assumes that I have not done some research, again, on my level. Again, I'm not a climatologist. This is not my area of expertise, and the farther away I get from my area of expertise the more I have to rely upon the consensus of scientific opinion, which I think is the appropriate thing to do. But he also made a lot of assumptions that were not correct. I've actually been reading quite extensively about this, especially since it keeps coming up a lot as a topic on our show, so I'm trying to inform myself as best as I can about the actual issues with global warming. And there is quite a lot of evidence for man-made global warming. There is global warming in fact. There is increasing CO2 levels. There is a plausible connection between the two. There is a receding of the glaciers and the polar icecaps. These things are all being documented to an increasing level, and every time skeptics say "Well, this data is not great", and NASA puts up another satellite or whatever, some new more sophisticated way of collecting the data is put out there, the data comes back even more in favour of man-made global warming. So, it really does seem to be converging on this consensus, but there is still, and I have said this before, it seems a lot of legitimate uncertainty about the degree of the man-made contribution to global warming, about how to extrapolate it to the future, and about the degree to which this is more of a natural trend, warming trend that we're having. Clearly there is some man-made global warming, and even some of the hardest skeptics will admit that, the debate really is about the relative contributions of man-made versus natural causes, and I do admit that there is, of course, some degree of uncertainty there.<br />
<br />
J: I also have the sneaking suspicion that the writer of the email doesn't agree with what your conclusions are.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Usually when people start to get nasty about logical fallacies it's because they don't accept the position that I'm taking. Nobody has chided me. None of our listeners have chided me for, for example, stating that greater than 98% of practicing scientists support evolution over creation. That's an argument from authority, too, if you apply the criteria the same way. But it's more saying that "hey, there is a robust scientific consensus for the fact of evolution." And it's not an argument from authority to point that out.<br />
<br />
B: I think that that fallacy though, is definitely one of the ones that's most easily abused when trying to employ it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I agree.<br />
<br />
B: People just throw it out there like "Oh, logical fallacy!". Well, no, not really.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, science has some legitimate authority to it, because the method works, the institutions basically work.<br />
<br />
=== God and the Big Bang <small>(25:01)</small>===<br />
S: Well, let's move on. We do have another &mdash; and this is our second audio email question. This one come from Joel Kerbrat, whose cypher name is "Jokermage". So let's play his audio email now:<br />
<br />
Joel: <br />
<blockquote>Hey, all. I love the podcast. It's been really helpful and informative. I do have a quick question, or, really, I'm just trying to get your opinion on a particular argument I encounter a lot when I'm discussing the existence or non-existence of God. I'll be able to quote you the literal text of one of the people I was having this discussion with: "Assuming the Big Bang Theory is in any way correct, and going back far enough, you come to a time when there was quite literally nothing. Where did this something which led to the creation of the first universe come from?" And from my perspective this would qualify as an argument from ingnorance. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang or ''before'' the Big Bang, so they always say "what's before that? What's before that?" and, honestly, we don't know or we're still looking there. And for some people the fact that we haven't reached that point yet, or may never reach that point says "oh, there must be a god there". Well, I'm just interested on what your guys' take is on this particular question. Thanks for your time! Bye! <br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Okay, well, thanks again Joel for sending us in that audio email. This is a question that we deal with frequently. This is a good old God of the Gaps argument. The idea that wherever there is a gap in our current scientific knowledge, that is where God is. God caused that thing that we have not yet explained through naturalistic or scientific explanations. <br />
<br />
R: I hate when people do that, seriously! Because it's like you put a period at the end of a sentence and you just say "well, that's it! Everybody can just go home now, there's nothing more to see here" instead of trying to explore things further.<br />
<br />
E: It's definitely lazy. If nothing else.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it is lazy. It is lazy.<br />
<br />
J: Well, it's opportunistic as well. I mean, people are always looking for a way to prove God exists, so that's the whole point to "god of the gaps". There's a gap there. Science can't currently define what it is, and they jump on it.<br />
<br />
B: The problem is, though, that that little god of the gap might be around for quite some time.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah! One might not go away sometime soon.<br />
<br />
B: That might be the last to go, because we just can't know what happened before the Big Bang<br />
<br />
S: Although if you recall a couple of weeks ago ...<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, yea, I still don't buy that.<br />
<br />
S: ... that was one of the Science or Fictions was inferring what happened before the Big Bang by the way the Universe looks today. So there may be windows of inference into that. It's hard to say. There's nothing that we can really extrapolate from current knowledge to know how we would even investigate what happened before the Big Bang or what caused it.<br />
<br />
J: Why don't we just never talk about the Big Bang again, you know what I mean?<br />
<br />
R: Ha ha ha ha. You know what? God did it. There, that was easy.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, fine. I'll give you that one, right?<br />
<br />
B: Here's my big problem with finding out &mdash; trying to figure out what happened before the Big Bang: If the Big Bang created not only space but time, so there was no time, there was no space before the Big Bang. So before the Big Bang: no space, no time, so how could you say "what happened ''before'' there was time?" when there was no time?<br />
<br />
S: Well, what I'll say about that, Bob, is trying to grasp the Big Bang and the existence of the Universe in English, in words that evolved to describe our everyday world, and they just are not up to the task. You don't have the language, and therefore you don't have the concept to really even grasp that question. The only way we that can really deal with it at this point in time is through mathematical concepts. So at some point we may be able to come up with some mathematical description of could of what happened "before" the Big Bang, although before is probably not the right word or the right concept.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
R: But you know, we could talk all day about the Big Bang, but I think that the important thing to remember is just that at one point we thought that God drew the Sun across the sky in a chariot, and if we had just stopped there and said "well, that's that" we wouldn't know jackshit today! <br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: But instead, we move forward, and we put that idea aside in favor of scientific inquiry.<br />
<br />
S: Right, and that's the most important point, I think, of all this, is that you shouldn't ever use the God of the Gaps argument to end scientific inquiry.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Zachary Moore <small>(29:58)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is Zachary Moore. Zach! Welcome to The Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
ZM: Hi! Thank you very much! Glad to be here.<br />
<br />
R: Hey Zach!<br />
<br />
S: Doctor Zach, as he is sometimes called, is a fellow podcaster. He does the ''Evolution 101'' podcast, which we've mentioned before on the show. An excellent podcast. He is a PhD in molecular biology and also the author of a blog called The Writings of a Mad Scientist. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cincinnati, and he's currently a graduate assistant. Is that still accurate?<br />
<br />
ZM: Post-doctoral assistant.<br />
<br />
S: Post-doctoral assistant at the University of Cincinnati, in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.<br />
<br />
ZM: Actually, I'm now at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.<br />
<br />
S: Ah! Your website is not updated!<br />
<br />
ZM: I just updated it the other day.<br />
<br />
S: Okay! <br />
<br />
ZM: I'm sorry about that.<br />
<br />
S: So he's currently a post-grad assistant at the University of Texas. So, Zachary, we've been listening to your ''Evolution 101'' podcast. They are excellent. How did you get interested in doing that? <br />
<br />
ZM: Well, you know, I kind of fell into it, and I never dreamed that it would get quite as popular as it has been. I don't know if you're familiar with Reggie Finley, who also goes by the name The Infidel Guy. He's got a website called TheInfidelGuy.com, and he's had a number of guests on to talk about evolutionary theory, and one of the ones that he had on several times was &mdash; I guess that you've also had &mdash; was Massimo Pigliucci<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
ZM: And uh ...<br />
<br />
S: MASSIMO! As we call him...<br />
<br />
ZM: Massimo!, yeah, he's a great guy. I love his blog, actually. He's really funny. Anyway, so he had some interest among the people that listen to his show &mdash; he's got like a webcast &mdash; that they would like to see a regular show that was within his sort of aegis that would just do evolution discussion, and it was to be titled ''Evolution 101'', and it was going to be once a week, an hour show that he would host, and initially it was supposed to be Massimo, primarily, although what happened was that he got sort of tied up with a bunch of things, and he couldn't commit the time, and so he put the word out that if there's anybody else that would like to contribute to that, that he'd be happy to share it around, maybe have like a rotating guest host or something like that.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ZM: So I was kind of nominated/volunteered for it, and I actually did the first episode of that. It was a two-hour long premier special, and then Massimo did the next week, and after that time Reggie sort of ran out of the time on his own to do that extra show, and so it sort of languished for a couple months, and people started talking again, and they said "Oh, we really loved that, and it'd be nice to have something on a regular basis even if it's not that much," and I sort of joined the conversation not really volunteering to pick it up myself, but I was just saying "yeah, it was a great idea. It was fun for me to do it. I really don't have the resources or the equipment to run a webcast like that on my own." Just sort of throwing it out there I said, "I suppose I could do a podcast," or something like that and somebody said "well why don't you do that?" and I said, "well OK, I'll give it a try."<br />
<br />
S: The rest is history!<br />
<br />
ZM: And the rest, as they say, is history! So I just recorded the first one just sort of on the fly and threw it out there and, I think that it's up to like five thousand downloads by now.<br />
<br />
J: Excellent! Excellent.<br />
<br />
ZM: It's not a huge amount but, you know, I guess it's okay for a small little thing that is just me doing it every Saturday morning in my pajamas and throwing it up there on the internet for people.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, so you podcast wearing clothes? This is ...<br />
<br />
ZM: I try to, yes.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca likes to &mdash; she thinks it's funny to tell everyone that she does it topless.<br />
<br />
ZM: Oh, okay. So that's the (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
J: But she hasn't posted any pictures yet or anything. There's no proof. <br />
<br />
ZM: Oh, be sure to post some, I'll appreciate that.<br />
<br />
R: You know, a little mystery is always good.<br />
<br />
ZM: Sure.<br />
<br />
R: Maybe the pajamas then, I'll consider that.<br />
<br />
S: You must have had an interest in evolution and evolution of science.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, I have. It's funny, because it was never something that I really &mdash; like when I was studying science it was always just sort of there, and I didn't really give much interest to the whole evolution/creation debate.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ZM: But the more I started doing things on the internet, and the more I sort of realized how much bad information there is out there, it started piquing my interest more and more, and I started reading some stuff like, you know, Richard Dawkins and other things like that.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ZM: And really started getting interested in it. I started spending a lot of time at [http://www.talkorigins.org Talk Origins], and I'm actually a moderator at a website for people who have left the Christian faith. It's called [exchristian.net exchristian.net], and I sort of specialize in the science part of that forum, so I moderate a lot of the stuff that comes up about evolution and creationism. And so I just sort of got used to thinking about that and not being an expert. I mean, I'm not an expert. I'm just some guy with a degree who knows where to look up the right stuff to find out the answers to these things. So anyway, so that gave me a little bit of confidence to put together the podcast.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's interesting because for me the evolution-creation debate &mdash; that was my gateway topic into skepticism in general. I mean, that was the first time I really got involved ...<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ... in a pseudoscience and examining it, even back in high school. And I've kept up with it ever since, even though, you know, like you, I'm more in the medical field. I don't have a degree in evolutionary biology<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I don't know if it's because of creationism, but there seems to be a tremendous amount of high quality information available for the layperson on evolution in general and also on the evolution-creation debate, so it's one of those topics where if you really want to be an exceptionally well-informed layperson, you can be. I mean, the information is out there.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right. It does take a bit of work. I mean, Dawkins is great, but he can be thick for some people. The people that I'm mostly trying to reach are people like, for example, my mother &mdash; knows nothing about science, you know, and so this was actually something &mdash; somewhat of a talent that I honed while I was coming up to the graduate school ranks, I would, in an effort to be able to make my data accessible to the general audience, whenever I would put together a presentation I would always give it to my mother, and if she could understand what I was saying, then I figured I could give the same talk to just about any audience without any problem. And so I try to sort of distill concepts and make them accessible to really, really the average Joe on the street.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that is a great skill to have, and it is a separate skill. Not all scientists can do that. They may be brilliant in their area, but they may not have that completely separate skill set that is needed to convey their discipline to the public at large.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, and most of the writing we do, and you've published a couple of things &mdash; I looked over your brain paper &mdash; the scientific writing is incredibly complex.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ZM: And it's almost completely inaccessible. I showed one of my papers to my father-in-law, and he looked at it said "I think there's two words in there that I understood"<br />
<br />
R: I usually get in trouble getting passed the titles.<br />
<br />
ZM: (''laughs'') So, it's kind of like the opposite of the way I'm thinking normally, or when I'm in the lab. Instead of making things as scientific precise as possible to sort of not dumb it down, but sort of generalize things and try to find good analogies so that everybody can come to the same understanding.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and it's difficult to do that without, as you say, without dumbing it down. To convey the richness and the detail of the scientific theory but translate it into terminology that a layperson can understand.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right. And it's really hard to do that in ten minutes or less, ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ZM: ... which is what I try for. My cousin's experienced in the dramatic arts, and he told me that after I'd chosen a ten-minute cut-off, he said that's actually a good time period because most people, when they're trying to learn about something like that, that ten minutes is about as long as the average person can really commit to something like that, especially if it's complicated.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, ten minutes is reasonable. I've heard twenty minutes is really like the upper limit of attention span. If you're just sitting in any kind of lecture type of environment, you can pay attention and process information for about twenty minutes. After that you're really not processing information anymore, unless there is something dynamic about that.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Which, of course, podcasts are not. They're passive. You're just sitting and listening to them.<br />
<br />
ZM: Exaclty.<br />
<br />
B: So Zach, will you now go to twenty minutes?<br />
<br />
ZM: Well, you know, I do go over sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: I think you can afford to. They're pretty quick.<br />
<br />
J: You know, no matter how much you dumb it down though, a true creationist won't even take the time to try to understand evolution, because they reject it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: So you're not pitching this to true believers. You're pitching this to people who are either on the fence or don't really have an opinion.<br />
<br />
ZM: Absolutely! And I think most of the people sort of just by default because they can't really grasp evolution. It just seems too complex. Creationism, even though it does violate the simplicity &mdash; Occam's razor &mdash; it's just a little bit more intuitive, you know? And that's kind of the problem with science is that very often it's not intuitive. So, hopefully, the laypeople and most of the people that I talk to who are just on the cusp of understanding, once they can really understand it then they're like "Oh, well of course that makes so much sense."<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I totally agree. That's how I feel about evolution. To me it makes much, much more sense than anything else you can possibly come up with.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Zach, how do you feel about directly debating creationists?<br />
<br />
ZM: Ah, well, let's see. The official line: Gould said that we shouldn't, right? And Dawkins agreed with him, so I don't want to go against Dawkins, but um ...<br />
<br />
R: Wait a minute. What kind of a critical thinker are you? Appeal to authority!<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, I don't know. I'm generally, you know, generally I don't really have a problem with engaging in open discussion with anybody on any topic, so there are some people that write in. They're usually not true believers, I don't think, unless they're sort of couching things in like a third person, like "Oh, my friend has this problem." So probably, so probably ...<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's got this itch.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, so probably I don't really interact with too many true believers, but I do interact with a bunch of people that just have honest questions, at least that's what they come across as.<br />
<br />
J: Well, before you signed on, Steve said that you used to get into a lot of fist fights over this. We want to know if that's true.<br />
<br />
ZM: Who me?<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding. Just kidding.<br />
<br />
S: You do list on your interests, you list Jeet Kune Doo as one of your interests.<br />
<br />
B: Jeet Kune DO!<br />
<br />
S: Jeet Kune DO, whatever.<br />
<br />
B: The Way of the Intercepting Fist. In what capacity is that? Do you actually study it or ...<br />
<br />
ZM: I have. Since I've been down in Texas I have. And I studied it when I was in Cincinnati. I'm a fairly big guy anyway, so I don't really worry about stuff like that. It was a friend of mine got into it really seriously and sort of convinced me to try it, and I actually really liked it. It was a lot of fun.<br />
<br />
B: For those that don't know, that's the style that Bruce Lee originated.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, right. It's actually less of a style ''per se'' ...<br />
<br />
B: Right, that's a misnomer.<br />
<br />
ZM: ... and more of a philosophy of martial arts. And it was a lot of fun.<br />
<br />
B: Exactly.<br />
<br />
ZM: Dan Inosanto's the guy that sort of runs the whole thing nowadays.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah! Did you meet him?<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah! Yeah. He came to (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
B: Oh, wow! Awesome!<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, and he's &mdash; what's his philosophy? Oh, it's something along the lines of "learn what you like, absorb what is useful."<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's pretty much Bruce Lee, I think.<br />
<br />
ZM: So, uh, they teach a lot of different styles there, and you sort of decide on your own what you're gonna specialize in.<br />
<br />
B: Yes!<br />
<br />
ZM: You sort of decide on your own what you specialize in and I really liked Kali and ...<br />
<br />
B: Yes!<br />
<br />
ZM: ... and pink cats a lot, those are my favorites. {{w|Wing chun}} is pretty cool, too, but I really like the Kali, I have to say. I like swinging a stick around.<br />
<br />
R: I General Tzo's Chicken, with the (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
R: That's my personal favorite, but ...<br />
<br />
ZM: That's pretty good too.<br />
<br />
B: It's good that you know. The jeet kune do is there just in case you get waylaid by a bunch of creationists or IDers.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right. I'll keep that in mind if I ever go to Kansas. <br />
<br />
J: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Now while we are on the topic of your interests, you also list there Sasquatch. What's that about?<br />
<br />
ZM: I figured you guys would call me on that one. No, I'm not a true believer of the Sasquatch. I'm just an interested observer of the phenomenon. I've had some &mdash; I spend a lot of time outdoors when I can, and I've had some &mdash; there's always some weird things that happen out there. So some unexplained phenomenon, so I'm just mostly interested to see if &mdash; obviously, the ultimate criteria is the body.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ZM: Of course, nobodies going to believe without a body, so I'm just sort of sitting and watching and waiting to see what they come up with.<br />
<br />
B: Even just DNA. I'd be happy with just DNA.<br />
<br />
ZM: I'd love to see some DNA, too. I heard about some getting sent to the Ohio State University at one point, but I never heard anything about it, so it must have been negative.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you always hear about the new find that's going to be analyzed by experts. The believers trump that up.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: But then you never hear that "Oh, it turned out to be bison," or whatever.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, right. That was a recent one.<br />
<br />
S: When you follow up on all of these, they all turn out to be known species.<br />
<br />
J: But, you know, it is remotely impossible I think at this point, but I actually don't think it's possible that they exist anymore, just because too many people have been looking for too long, but how cool would it be if they really did turn up one?<br />
<br />
ZM: I know. That's kind of where I am, too. And, honesty, of all the supposed cryptids that are out there, I think the Sasquatch is probably the most likely to crop up.<br />
<br />
S: There's nothing inherently implausible ...<br />
<br />
ZM: No, no.<br />
<br />
S: ... about a giant hominid. We know they existed it evolutionary ...<br />
<br />
ZM: Right. Gigantipithicus.<br />
<br />
S: ... in the past, like {{w|Gigantipithicus}}. Yeah, it's the one that always comes up. There's just no evidence they're around now, and there's no reason to think that the cultural phenomenon of belief in Sasquatch is based upon evidence. It was based upon hoaxes, so when a phenomenon is initiated by hoaxes, I don't hold out much hope that it's going to ultimately be true. That would be quite a coincidence.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, and I actually &mdash; part of what keeps me tempered on that is the fact that I was personally most likely one of the hoaxes that may be out there, certainly.<br />
<br />
S: Is that right?<br />
<br />
B: What?<br />
<br />
ZM: Kind of a long story, but I spent some time ...<br />
<br />
J: We have plenty of time. Go ahead.<br />
<br />
ZM: I've spent some time doing some ultra-primitive stuff, orienteering and things in the wilds of Kentucky. I inadvertently spooked some young kids that were out there, and they probably thought I was something that I was not, so ...<br />
<br />
J: Were you wearing a rug? What were you doing?<br />
<br />
ZM: No, I was just sort of out there covered in mud and leaves and loin-cloth, just ultra-primitive experiencing ...<br />
<br />
R: Like an episode of The Simpsons.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah,<br />
<br />
J: Exactly what I thought of.<br />
<br />
B: Awesome!<br />
<br />
ZM: So, anyway, they got a bit of a scare. I don't know if they ever told anybody about it, but if they did, then that was me.<br />
<br />
R: I'm sure they told their therapist. So, congratulations.<br />
<br />
J: Zach, will you at least agree with us that we know for certain there aren't any psychic Bigfoots?<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, I think that's without a doubt. The bfro.net, the Bigfoot Field Research Organization, I paid a lot of attention to their website, because they seem to try to do things in sort of a rigorous, somewhat scientific way, but after the follow-up from the Sonoma video, ...<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, they fell for that hard.<br />
<br />
ZM: Well, I downloaded the video, and I looked at it, and I was like "That is &mdash; what is that?" I couldn't quite make up my mind, and then the BFRO came out heavily in favor of it, and I was like "Well, you know, if they're in favor of it, maybe there is something to it," because they've got all of these anthropologists like Jeff Meldrum and other guys that are supposedly looking at all these things, and then it comes out that it's Penn and Teller.<br />
<br />
J: I heard after that incident they changed their name from BFO to BFD.<br />
<br />
R: That's clever.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, actually, I've heard that there's a lot of people leaving that organization, because it's sort of becoming a "Let's go out and camp and find Bigfoot" type of thing, instead of a "Let's really investigate what's going on."<br />
<br />
S: Surprise, surprise.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So, Zachary, before we run out of time, I want to get to some real immediate evolutionary topics, because we talk a lot on this podcast about the conflict between evolution and creationism, and occasionally we talk about some specifics, but because of the nature of your podcast, I really want to get to some meat with you. The first episodes of yours that I listened to were the series you did on the molecular evidence for evolution, which I thought was just excellent, because it really brought home what I feel to be the strongest, at least statistically, evidence for evolution. What do you think about that?<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, absolutely, and those are my favorite ones to do, also. Those are actually the main reason why I really agreed to do the podcast in the first place, just because this is my favorite evidence, and I just wanted to get that out there, get it out there in the public, because nobody really knows about this. I mean, everybody knows, oh, fossils and whatever, but nobody really thinks to look at the DNA. My background is in molecular biology, so I'm dealing with DNA all the time, and ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ZM: ... looking at these things, and so it made a lot of sense to me, so I wanted to get that sort of translated to the laypeople. And, basically, the way it works: when you look at the DNA evidence, you can look at two things. You can look at the coding regions of the genome and the non-coding regions, and the coding regions obviously are the genes, and ultimately what they produce, which are the proteins. And there's functional redundancy in the genes and also in proteins that they eventually make, and proteins are, basically, long chains of amino acids. There's twenty different amino acids, and different organizations of the different amino acids in the chain make different proteins. So in that way, function follows from structure. In a similar way, the DNA sequence is made up of four different nucleotides, and the amino acids sequence that follows from that DNA sequence is based on the three nucleotide codons, which make up the gene. And what's interesting is that there's, as I said, there's functional redundancy in the sequences of both proteins and the DNA in that you can have vastly different sequences of amino acid come up with the same, basically functional protein.<br />
<br />
S: It will have the same three-dimensional structure, basically.<br />
<br />
ZM: Essentially, because, yes, the structure &mdash; as I said, the function follows from the structure. So you can have a number of different amino acid sequences that give the same basic structures. It may not be exactly the same, but it's close enough to give that essential function, and you see this especially with what are called ubiquitous genes, such as Cytochrome C, which is a gene that's essential for cellular respiration, and you can, basically, swap out the yeast gene Cytochrome C for the human gene of Cytochrome C, and they work essentially the same. Even though the sequence, the amino acid sequences are very, very different. And, again, you see the very same phenomenon with the DNA. A number of different &mdash; because the codons are also redundant. So there are some codons that will &mdash; you can have different, as many as four different codons, in some cases as many as six, different codons give the exact same amino acid. So there's essentially incalculable ways, many incalculable ways that you can get the same amino acid sequence from DNA, the undelying DNA sequence. So you can basically write the gene millions and millions of different ways, because of the codon redundancy. Now, given all this, if heredity wasn't the case, if we didn't inherit our DNA from our parents and then from their parents and so on and so forth, if that was not the case, you would not expect to see different organisms with similar DNA sequences, because, as I said, so many different DNA sequences are functionally redundant, so there's enough redundancy in the sequences for every single organism to have a completely different gene and a completely different protein for every single gene in the genome. But that's not what we see. What we see is that the closer two organisms are in terms of their characteristics, the closer they are in their genes. So a dog and a cat have more similar genes to each other than to a frog, for example.<br />
<br />
S: Right. I think it's important to emphasize, because the creationists will often counter that by saying "well, yeah, so God made more similar creatures to look more similar at a genetic level, too." But the thing that's important is that the differences in DNA sequences and the redundant code of the DNA have absolutely zero, zip, nothing to do with function.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, so that's ...<br />
<br />
S: They are invisible to function.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, so it's completely unnecessary to postulate that.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ZM: Another criticism, as far as that goes, is that "Well, you know, maybe these things could've been created that way for some yet unknown reason." Well, that's just God of the gaps.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ZM: I'm sorry, but there's no reason to postulate that. If you have a naturalistic estimation for some phenomenon, you don't need to insert some sort of supernatural explanation for that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can also look at it from the point of view that the theory of evolution predicts that we will see an evolutionary hereditary pattern of differences at the molecular genetic level, and that's exactly what we find.<br />
<br />
ZM: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: So in a way, you can test evolutionary theory by observing the pattern, and evolution has been validated by corroborating evidence thousands and thousands and thousands of times over &mdash; every time you look at the genetic evidence it validates evolutionary theory.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right. <br />
<br />
S: And it's never been falsified with this evidence.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, and you can check any gene. All the genes are published on the Internet. I have several examples of genes that I put on my website that you can see where I've laid out the sequences from different organisms, and I construct a {{w|cladogram}} based on that. Every single one you see humans and chimpanzees more closely related to each other and everything else is falling at what would be predicted by evolutionary theory, and if anybody out there has gene that they like me to do that for, I'm more than willing to do that. So in case you'd like to try to disprove it, there's the challenge.<br />
<br />
B: Zach, since this genetic information is so detailed and gives us such insight into evolutionary history, I mean, what else have we learned? I mean, have we found any connections between species or things that say "Oh, wow! We didn't realize they were &mdash; they had such a close genetic history," or there must be some insight. So maybe the science is too young to really determine that at this point.<br />
<br />
ZM: No, there's some weird relationships that we've been able to determine based on genetic information, like bats are probably, outside of primates, are the most closely related to humans. Another weird one is cetaceans &mdash; whales and dolphins and porpoises &mdash; are actually part of the {{w|Artiodactyla}} clade. They're not there own separate clade. They evolved from the ungulates, basically, cows and deer and stuff like that. The closest related species to them is the hippopotamus.<br />
<br />
S: Let's talk a little bit about transitional fossils, as the other main body of evidence, and, again, I think that the real strength of evolutionary theory is that all these different, independent lines of evidence line up quite nicely.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Even in many cases down to very fine detail, but the thing that always amazes me is the number of times creationists or evolution deniers repeat the claim that there are no transitional fossils, which is always mind-boggling, because that's a factually demonstrably wrong statement.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right.<br />
<br />
S: What I find that they do is that they just redefine or define away what is a transitional species to make them not exist. On a recent podcast of yours you talked about that and put it in an excellent context. What do we really mean by transitional species?<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, well the problem is every species is a transitional species.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ZM: Aside from that, there are a number of really good &mdash; yeah, that's kind of what you have to &mdash; and I haven't really had any debates on this myself, but really what it comes down to is definitions.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ZM: What do you accept as a transitional species? And usually it's something that has &mdash; they might waffle on this &mdash; but something that shows characteristics of one defined group, and they're sort of hard to pin down, even on what constitutes a group or a classification ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ZM: ... and characteristics of another. And there are so many &mdash; I mean {{w|Tiktaalik}} was ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ZM: ... excellent.<br />
<br />
S: The walking fish, yeah.<br />
<br />
ZM: It had distinctly fish characteristics; it had tetrapod characteristics; and it had a number of characteristics that were intermediary between the two. So, I mean, it's just &mdash; you couldn't ask for a better example.<br />
<br />
S: Right, and what they will say, like if you read Duane Gish and a lot of the other, you know, Hovind and some of the classic creationist arguments, ...<br />
<br />
ZM: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: ... is they'll either try to say that a so-called transitional species is really one or the other. "Well, that's just a fish." And Homo Erectus: "That was just an ape." And Archaeopteryx: "Well, that was just a bird." They just try to peg it as one, and they just ignore all of the intermediary features. The other thing they say, if you peg them on that, they'll say "Well, you can't prove that that was actually evolutionarily transitional between these two groups. It just happens to be a bird with teeth and a bony tail, and so God made birds that look like that. That doesn't prove that it's actually transitional." So, again, they just change the criteria for what is a transitional species, so that no matter what evidence you put before them, it's not enough.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, and that's also absolutely not true. You can graph, especially with the hominids, you can graph certain characteristics of fossils over time and see definite change between these different groups.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, of course you can.<br />
<br />
ZM: I mean, it's so obvious.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but then what they'll do is they'll take the half that looks more ...<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, just arbitrary cut-off point.<br />
<br />
S: ... like an ape and say those are just apes, and the half that looks more human and say "Those are just diseased humans." And ''voilà'', they've dismissed the very nice sequence of fossils that clearly shows change over time in the hominid line. But that's why there's no winning with them.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Recently, again talking about how the ID'ers or creationists deal with this overwhelming evidence. There is actually a podcast out there called ''ID, The Future'', that the Discovery Institute puts out, and recently one of their hosts made the statement that &mdash; I know this is part of the intelligent design big tent, where they accept quite a range of views of evolution denial.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But one thing that some of them say is that okay, well, they accept that change over time occurs, and they accept common descent, that creatures are, in fact, related to each other and that they've changed over time, which happily accommodates all of the evidence that we've discussed so far.<br />
<br />
ZM: Sure.<br />
<br />
S: All of the molecular evidence, all the transitional fossil evidence, etc. So what they're left with is that they say they only have a problem with natural selection, by which they mean that natural processes or forces could have resulted in or caused this change to occur over time. So what they think happens is that God, this intrinsic divine force from God is making evolution happen over time. This sort of ongoing creation, which ...<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God! That's their new position now?<br />
<br />
S: That is the position of some of the ...<br />
<br />
B: Oh, jeez!<br />
<br />
S: ... IDers. Which of course is less difficult to disprove, because it accommodates most of the evidence that we put forward for evolution.<br />
<br />
J: That's still magical thinking, though.<br />
<br />
S: It's still, but what it gets down to, and that gets down to all they're really left with is irreducible complexity. Because that's the only thing they have that says that the natural explanations don't work, and therefore you need to introduce the intelligent designer. You've, again, on a recent one of your podcasts, you've spoken about irreducible complexity.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, they don't even have irreducible complexity anymore. I think that was pretty much blasted at Dover.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
ZM: So Behe was kind of put his place on that aspect. So I really don't even think they have that any more.<br />
<br />
S: Well, they don't. They don't, but that's what they're clinging to, though.<br />
<br />
ZM: Sure.<br />
<br />
B: If that's where they're heading, Steve, if that's like the future of ID, that's quite a victory for science, I would think. If they actually concede all that, and there is general agreement that they all concede that. I'm sure it's minority now, but maybe in twenty years that's going to be the dominant position of the other side, and still, of course, they'll be clinging to their magical thinking, but still that could be considered, I think, a victory.<br />
<br />
S: Well, what I think is that is the thin edge of the wedge, right? Once you &mdash; it doesn't matter to what degree &mdash; once you introduce God into science, they've won. That's their goal: is to introduce supernaturalism, God into science at any level, even if it's just to say that "Well, this complexity was too much for natural forces alone to explain," and once they're in, they intend nothing less than completely dismantling naturalistic, materialistic science as we know it.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So I wouldn't get complacent about that.<br />
<br />
B: No, absolutely not. Never get complacent, but still, I'm kind of happy about that we've actually won a little battle there. If that's the direction it's going.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it's kind of you're pushing the wedge back out just a little bit, so, small victory.<br />
<br />
ZM: Hopefully it dilutes the impact of evolutionary theory that maybe they'll just sort of get tired and just &mdash; it will be diluted to the point where they can learn it, be comfortable with being taught in the science classroom, and then the Christian students out there can just go home and think themselves "Okay that's all true, and way back along the line somewhere there's God."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ZM: Maybe.<br />
<br />
S: I do think that when you teach people science, even if you don't specifically try to take away their supernatural beliefs, whatever they are, that if you really do a good job of teaching of science, over time the supernatural beliefs tend to wane and tend to go away.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, you see, creationists aren't the only ones with a wedge.<br />
<br />
S: Well, Zach, do you see yourself during the Evolution 101 podcast for a long period of time? What are your long-term plans?<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, I'm still loving it, so, yeah. I'm going to be doing it for as long as people keep sending me questions.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Great.<br />
<br />
S: I think the Internet is the biggest classroom ...<br />
<br />
ZM: Sure.<br />
<br />
S: ... that we have, and that's for people like you and me who just like to teach, which is why else would anybody go into academia, to do research and to teach and make no money, right?<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So it is very good to have the podcast and the Internet as, basically, as a classroom, and at the other end, I think the public is well-served to have people who are interested in and motivated to teach science to put their thoughts out there. So it's a great thing, and your podcast definitely fills an excellent niche. There are nice crunchy bits of knowledge about evolution, and it definitely fills a need.<br />
<br />
ZM: I would agree with that, and I recently went back &mdash; I grew up in Ohio &mdash; and I went back and I checked the Ohio science standards, and they may have changed since then. I was actually kind of worried because of the stuff that was going on in Ohio, but the official science standards have at least a half a dozen pretty good lessons on evolution, and I was reading them, and I was really disappointed. I guess it's up to the schools to decide which lesson plans they incorporate, but I really missed out on those, and I really wish I would have gotten a little bit more of that.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. I think that what that means is that people who are interested in this topic need to educate themselves, which is basically what I did. I took some college-level courses, too, which were excellent, and that's why I think a lot of the excellent textbooks were out there, out there, by Dawkins, as you said, and Gould and others, but also now podcasts and the Internet like ''Talk Origins'', which is a remarkable, excellent resource, are indispensable, because they basically, we have to fill the gap that's being left by the public school educational system.<br />
<br />
ZM: Exactly, exactly, and I am &mdash; there's a definite response, and a lot of people have been very grateful for hearing my podcast. I do happen to be the number one Evolution podcast on iTunes right now.<br />
<br />
S: Excellent.<br />
<br />
R: Congratulations.<br />
<br />
ZM: Although, I am also the only evolution podcast on iTunes right now.<br />
<br />
R: You know, you could have stopped right there, before you said that.<br />
<br />
ZM: I know.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, we're the number one skeptical podcast.<br />
<br />
S: We are. We are the number one podcast dedicated to scientific skepticism.<br />
<br />
ZM: And you're also the number one podcast that listeners of Evolution 101 also subscribe to.<br />
<br />
R: All right.<br />
<br />
B: Cool!<br />
<br />
S: Well, now that we're done patting either other on the back,<br />
<br />
R: Go us! Yay!<br />
<br />
S: Hey! Go us! Well, Zach, it was great talking with you. I enjoy the podcast. I hope to be able to listen to them far into the future.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, keep it up.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks for agreeing to be on the Skeptics' Guide. I hope to have you back again sometime.<br />
<br />
ZM: My pleasure. Anytime.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Take care.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, take it easy.<br />
<br />
R: Bye, Zach.<br />
<br />
B: Bye.<br />
<br />
S: So that was Zachary Moore, Evolution 101. Excellent podcast.<br />
<br />
R: Fabulous.<br />
<br />
S: I recommend you take a listen.<br />
<br />
J: I think it's cool to have people on the show from another podcast, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it is. It's good to have some cross-promotion. And our listeners are clearly &mdash; people who listen to our show will probably want to listen to his and vice versa. Well, we have time for a Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:07:16)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts. Two are genuine, and one is fake, and I challenge my esteemed panel of skeptics to figure out which one is fake. Are you ready?<br />
<br />
R: Ah, ready. Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Ready.<br />
<br />
S: Item number one: a new study finds that in general people become progressively less happy as they get older. Item number two: astronomers have discovered a giant intergalactic ball of hot gas a hundred million degrees and 3 million light years in diameter. Item number three: robotics scientists have developed artificial sensors able to give robots touch sensation so discriminating they can discern Lincoln's image on a penny. Evan, go ahead.<br />
<br />
E: Say number one is fiction, so there you have it. For any reason in particular? Less happy as you get older. I don't know. That's just not &mdash; I just don't ...<br />
<br />
S: You could also say that people get more grumpy as they get older.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily think that that's the case either on that one. I don't know. I think that one just has a certain flexibility to it that would allow it to be the one that is wrong. Whereas a giant ball of gas 3 million light years? Sure that's big, but plausible as far as I can think. And artificial sensors for robots to detect Lincoln's face in a penny? Sure, absolutely, why not? I don't see anything wrong with that.<br />
<br />
S: Alrighty. Jay?<br />
<br />
J: I think &mdash; the first one is one of those I really think it's true. I don't really know anyone, any older people that are extremely happy. They're usually in pain and arthritis and all that. It just seems kind of hokey that of all the three this seems to be the one that you want to &mdash; you think we're all going to pick, but I think it's number two. I think number two is false.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Number one. People get happier as they get older.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, Bob?<br />
<br />
R: It's just true. Sorry.<br />
<br />
B: What about grumpy old men?<br />
<br />
R: Sorry, Jay.<br />
<br />
B: All right, Steve, tell me about your gas, again.<br />
<br />
J: Usually after I eat meatballs. Oh, God!<br />
<br />
S: It's a ball of gas about a hundred million degrees. That's hot. And it's 3 million light years across.<br />
<br />
B: Alright, so, less happy? That sounds plausible. I've met plenty of grumpy old men, and I plan on being less happy when I get older, because I'm just going to be ...<br />
<br />
J: Less happy.<br />
<br />
B: ... old and aching and ...<br />
<br />
R: Well, everybody needs goals.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah. That's mine.<br />
<br />
E: You are the senior member here, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I'm old. Thanks for pointing that out. So that seems plausible to me. That wouldn't surprise me either way, but I don't think that's the least plausible today. Third: the touch sensation. I did read about that, so that's correct. Two is absolute crap. A hundred million degrees that's 3 million light years wide. That's thirty times the size of our galaxy, yet hotter than the sun. Eh, eh. No way.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. <br />
<br />
R: And that's that!<br />
<br />
B: I can't imagine.<br />
<br />
R: I don't think you have to go futher. Steve, you don't even have to tell us the answer, because there we go.<br />
<br />
S: Well, you all agree that number three is true. That, in fact, we've developed touch sensation for robots that is extremely discriminating, and that is, in fact, true. You all got that right. Some of you had read it. It has been around for a few days in the news. This actually &mdash; the pictures they have of the kind of data they can get is actually quite impressive. They can actually read a lot of the fine detail in like the engraving of Lincoln on the pennies. The device is a film roughly 100 nanometers thick. Within it lie alternating layers of nanoparticles of gold and cadmium sulfide, separated by films of polymer, and then there's basically electrical charges that enable it to read tactile information. So one step closer to humaniform robots. <br />
<br />
B: Humaniform!<br />
<br />
S: Let's go next to item number one. A new study finds that in general people become progressively less happy or more grumpy as they get older. That is &mdash; shall I give you a drum roll? <br />
<br />
R: No!<br />
<br />
S: That is fiction! That is fiction. That means that Rebecca and Evan are correct this week.<br />
<br />
E: High-five. Right there.<br />
<br />
R: Again! Yeah. All right!<br />
<br />
S: So, in fact, what the study shows is that people get happier as they get older.<br />
<br />
E: I know I do.<br />
<br />
S: In general, people actually get happier as they get older. But what's also very interesting about this study is that whereas most people rate their own happiness higher when they're older than when they're younger, they think that other people are grumpier or unhappy as they get older. They also think that younger people are happier, and they remember themselves being happier when they were younger. So everyone thinks that their current state of being happy when they're older is the exception to the rule, but actually enough people say that that actually is the rule, not the exception.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, is this happening because of some atrophy in the brain?<br />
<br />
S: That's a good question. <br />
<br />
E: Your brain is the king. You don't realize that you should be disappointed with growing older. Instead, you're happy.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Hey, ignorance is bliss.<br />
<br />
S: Our brains do atrophy when we get older, including our frontal lobes, and some people lose their anxiety as they get &mdash; and we're talking like older than seventy or eighty or something. It's certainly possible. This study was performed by VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and University of Michigan researchers involving 540 adults who were either between the ages of 21 and 40 or over 60. This was published recently in the Journal of Happiness Studies.<br />
<br />
E: The Journal of Happiness Studies.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever. Get to two. How could you possibly justify two.<br />
<br />
S: Two.<br />
<br />
E: Go, Bob. Go for it.<br />
<br />
S: You know, obviously this was the one that I read like this is totally unbelievable, so why would be a good true one to throw in there.<br />
<br />
B: You must have got a figure wrong. 3 million light years? A 100 million degrees? Come on!<br />
<br />
S: I triple-checked it.<br />
<br />
B: Justify it!<br />
<br />
S: I have the link. This is from the European space agency. This comes from the ESA's XNM Newton X-ray satellite. A team of international scientists found a &mdash; they call it a commet-like ball of gas &mdash; I don't know why they say that &mdash; over a thousand million times the mass of the sun hurtling through it to a distant galaxy cluster at over 750 kilometers per second. They say that the size and velocity of this gas ball is "truly fantastic" says Dr. Alexis Finoguenov, who is an assistant professor of physics at the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, and here are the figures: The gas ball is about 3 million light years across or about 5000 million times the size of our solar system.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
R: That's pretty big.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah?<br />
<br />
S: There are actually galaxies inside this ball of gas.<br />
<br />
J: What becomes of it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: What's that?<br />
<br />
B: You said it's a 100 million degrees.<br />
<br />
J: Wait, you just said that there's galaxies inside of it.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. Hey, it's 3 million light years across. That's much bigger than our own galaxy.<br />
<br />
J: Wait, I'm sorry. I pictured this as like a blazing fire ball.<br />
<br />
B: Jay, he said 3 million light years across.<br />
<br />
J: I know, but Bob, the way he described it I pictured it as like a gigantic sun.<br />
<br />
B: Well, yeah, because it makes no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it's not very dense.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, you suck. That was &mdash; you know what?<br />
<br />
E: Speaking of very dense.<br />
<br />
R: Wow! And zing!<br />
<br />
J: You described it, Steve, as a sun, like this is gigantic on fire.<br />
<br />
S: Jay, I gave you the numbers. I told you the temperature and the size.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, how do &mdash; how do they justify ...<br />
<br />
R: How do you justify those ''facts''?<br />
<br />
B: It's a hundred million degrees.<br />
<br />
E: Well it's farenheit, celsius, or kelvin.<br />
<br />
S: It says "it contains hundreds of galaxies and great amounts of hot gas that is nearly 100 million degrees." <br />
<br />
J: I'm going to tell you right now, Steve, that there's a lot of angry listeners out there along with me that are very upset about number two.<br />
<br />
S: I've got the link, dude. It's very surprising. They also think that this feeds the formation of entire galaxies, the matter in this gas.<br />
<br />
E: That is one heck of a flatulence right there.<br />
<br />
J: That's awesome. That is awesome.<br />
<br />
R: Hm. That's a lot of beans.<br />
<br />
S: Apparently Rebecca and Evan had no problem believing in the 300 ...<br />
<br />
R: Not at all. That's because I have no concept of temperature or space.<br />
<br />
B: So you're saying your ignorance helped you out. <br />
<br />
R: Yes, that's what I'm saying.<br />
<br />
S: Bob got into trouble because he actually knew enough to realize how absolutely incredible this finding is.<br />
<br />
J: Anyway (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: All right, guys. Thanks again for another good show.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Steve.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Always a pleasure.<br />
<br />
J: Stumped me again.<br />
<br />
R: Good times.<br />
<br />
S: Until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
<br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, June 14<sup>th</sup> 2006. This is your host, Steven Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hello!<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hey everybody!<br />
<br />
J: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey, hey, hey!<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good evening, all my friends.<br />
<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Motorola patents feng-shui device <small>(00:38)</small>===<br />
S: So have you guys heard about Motorola's new fancy device that they have just patented?<br />
<br />
B: Yeaaah! Cool!<br />
<br />
S: They have patented a ''feng shui'' device.<br />
<br />
R: Oh my god! Are you serious?<br />
<br />
S: It actually, it measures the ''feng-shuiness'' of your environment and tells you where you need to move your furniture and stuff.<br />
<br />
J: How does it tell you where to move your furniture...what it what...<br />
<br />
E: Whatever Motorola is doing it for, I'll do it for you at half price, whatever they're charging.<br />
<br />
S: Right!<br />
<br />
R: I have a very small studio apartment, I'm just wondering...there's really nowhere else for things to go.<br />
<br />
E: You're thinking inside the box, Rebecca, you have to think outside the box. <br />
<br />
B: Is ''feng shui'' THAT popular?<br />
<br />
S: Oh, so, ''feng shui'', for those in the audience who may not know what it is, is an eastern tradition where they basically, it's pure magical thinking. It's the notion that luck and health and money and things like these are forces and energies in your environment and they can either flow into your life, or into your house, or away from you according to how you might arrange your furniture.<br />
<br />
J: Ancient Chinese secret...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean, it's really...<br />
<br />
J: Stupid, say it, it's stupid!<br />
<br />
R: Hahaha<br />
<br />
J: It's probably one of the dumbest things out there!<br />
<br />
S: It is! It's one of the absolute dumbest things...it's pure magical thinking. There's just nothing else to say<br />
<br />
J: Feng shui...Isn't one of the things that you can't sweep...you have to sweep everything to the center of a room, because you can't - you can't sweep anything outside the house.<br />
<br />
E: There's no... there are no parameter.<br />
<br />
B: That's part of it. It's a flow of energy, you know, you wanna have the flow of energy, you know, I guess, going in the right direction and stuff like that. The funny thing is, though, that this device, it doesn't, like, detect the ''qi'', and determine the nature, the energy and where it's going, it uses, like, radio signals!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah!<br />
<br />
B: It says "Okay, here's where the radio signals are, so that, hopefully, that is correlated with positive ''Qi''.<br />
<br />
R: So wait, you are saying it doesn't even detect ''Qi''?I mean...<br />
<br />
E: God!<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
E: There's ''Qi''!<br />
<br />
R: What a rinkball!<br />
<br />
S: It says weak radio signals indicate positive ''Qi'' but strong signals means negative ''Qi''. And I don't know...How did they figure that out?<br />
<br />
B: Right! Not only that, so if you have positive ''Qi'', then you have a bad connection to your cellphone.<br />
<br />
S: Right!<br />
<br />
R: That's not very lucky.<br />
<br />
J: Wait, is Motorola ran by a bunch of retards?<br />
<br />
S: I think they're ran by the same executives who were running Florsheim those numbers of years ago when they put out the magnetic insoles to help with the circulation in your feet. Remember that?<br />
<br />
E: Of course!<br />
<br />
R: I think they're ran by people who like to make a lot of money regardless of the consequences.<br />
<br />
S: And who think that their average customer is a moron.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah...californian crowd<br />
<br />
B: They see a niche, they see a niche and they want it to happen and they were (?!)<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and they make stuff up: "Ah, we'll just mesure radio waves, because we can, and we'll call it ''Qi'' and we'll sell it! It's a feng shui device!"<br />
<br />
R: Why not?<br />
<br />
B: Wouldn't you think that feng shui purists would say: "Hey! That's not how that works!"<br />
<br />
J: I'm sure they will, Bob!<br />
<br />
S: Like there are feng shui purists. Bob, the people who are selling their services as feng shui consultants they're just making it up out of the top of their heads anyway, they don't agree with each other, they just give you completely different<br />
<br />
J: No, no Steve!<br />
<br />
R: There's a great episode of Bull$hit about that, actually, when they invited three different feng shui consultants and they each did entirely different set-ups for the houses.<br />
<br />
B: Right, there are certain....<br />
<br />
J: Right, there are things that are standard, there are things like facing <br />
<br />
B: Right<br />
<br />
J: Everything has to be lined up, I believe, to the north properly, or something along those lines.<br />
<br />
R: But even then, they bend, they bend their own rules and they don't know...<br />
<br />
B: True, there's a lot of differences between the various feng shui experts, but I'd think that all would agree that it's not radio signals.<br />
<br />
R: I don't know, I mean, I think that they'll line up behind anything that they think will give them some shred of... ahm... legitimacy.<br />
<br />
E: Well, my acupuncturist told me that...he must know!<br />
<br />
J: Steve! I think this could be classified under those things that people think are fun, and maybe, at least in the United States.<br />
<br />
S: I don't think people shell out five thousand dollars to a feng-chui expert because they think it's fun. I think that they might do it because they think it's a status symbol so they can say that they, whatever, that their house is feng shui.<br />
<br />
E: Or when our governments waste our, waste our tax money by hiring feng shui experts to come in and tell them how to construct their, how to construct government buildings.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah!<br />
<br />
E: That's not funny at all...<br />
<br />
J: Wait! That happens?<br />
<br />
E: In Connecticut it happened.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yes, it did.<br />
<br />
E: It happened here in Hartford.<br />
<br />
J: Oh my god!<br />
<br />
S: They were embarrassed out of it ultimately, but they did spend tax payers money on a feng shui consultant.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, they could say: "Yea, I'm Feng Shui 1.0 Compliant"<br />
<br />
E: Ha ha ha.<br />
<br />
J: I have to go shoot myself right now. I can't take that.<br />
<br />
R: Hah<br />
<br />
E: Well, don't do that Jay, stick around and listen to the next item.<br />
<br />
J: I'll finish<br />
<br />
R: Besides, you're gonna get, you're gonna get blood all over your carpet and that's not good for your Qi!<br />
<br />
J: That's right! You're right! Thank you, Rebecca!<br />
<br />
R: See?<br />
<br />
J: You saved me again.<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Larry Summer Followup <small>(05:43)</small>===<br />
S: Now, this is...Rebecca, you blogged about this recently. It's about the one year anniversary of the Larry Summers infamist - now infamist comment about women academics at Harvard.<br />
<br />
R: Well, it's not the one year anniversary of the comment. The comment would have been back in January.<br />
<br />
S: Is that right?<br />
<br />
R: Uhm... Yeah, I think it was around like, January/February of 2005. We're actually at the one year mark of the creation of the department that he made to kind of, uhn, soothe over the hubbub, I think, uh, and it's specifically for, uh, increasing diversity among the Harvard faculty. So it's been about a year since that was setup. So they just did a report going over what they've accomplished over the past year.<br />
<br />
J: So what did he say?<br />
<br />
R: He was asked to give a speech explaining some of the current hypothesis concerning why there's not a high percentage of women in the upper echelons, specially when it comes to the sciences. And he went over a few different hypothesis, one of which was basically that women might just not have the same mental capabilities as men to do science.<br />
<br />
S: Uhum.<br />
<br />
R: And , of course, that pissed off a lot of people and there's a lot of bad publicity over it and it was about a year after that, it was back in February that he announced that he was going to resign his position. And he didn't say that it was specifically because of that <br />
<br />
S: But that's what it was.<br />
<br />
R: Speculations (then Jay cuts in)<br />
<br />
J: Well, I'd like to as everyone's opinion, you know, is there any validity to that? Did anyone do a real study? I mean, what's the...what's the consensus here?<br />
<br />
S: That's clearly a thorny issue, because it is so political, but, you know, I'm a neuroscientist, I have sort of some sense of what this literature shows and in my reading of that, in the last 20-30 years there have been quite a few studies comparing the, just if - if you just step back a minute and not think about any particular ability but just look at the male and female brains they definitely are different. They definitely function different. They're organized differently in a number of ways that have been clearly established. For example: The female brain is more bilaterally redundant than the male brain. Male functions, specially with language, tend to lateralize a lot more to one side when women will utilize both sides of their brain more.<br />
<br />
J: So does that mean that women may be more adapt to language than men?<br />
<br />
S: Well that's a, that is a possibility and there is some evidence to support that. So I think the thing that is interesting about this is partly, you know, how politicized it gets. There are those at one extreme who, who think that any suggestion that there is a difference between men and women, it makes you a fascist, and they really get very emotionally upset at just the suggestion of it. And I think that that is a very counter-productive end of the spectrum. Of course, at the other end of the spectrum there's some hold over sexism, you know, but I do think that is significantly on the wane, at least in our society. Obviously in other parts of the world they're very, very different. What this comes down to, I think that this is really what this Larry Summer comment comes down to is: in our present day society, how much of the differences of distribution of men and women in different professions is due to past or current prejudice, and how much of it is due to self sorting. Is how much is due to the fact that men and women may have different likes and dislikes, and may have different aptitudes statistically, and you have to remember that even a slight difference aptitude, ah, on average, which could mean that 98% of men and 98% of women are not any different for each other. But even if there's a slight, slight difference, then at the very top of ability, either there could be a huge representation of one over the other. <br />
<br />
R: And then, Steve, it's not just,ahm, the option isn't just whether or not it's genetic, I mean, there's another option besides genetic, and bias...<br />
<br />
B: Well, cultural!<br />
<br />
R: Yea, there's just, just the fact that women could be raised from birth to just not be interested in science. I mean, it could be the way that they're being taught, the way that we're influenced<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
J: I'm sure there has a part in it<br />
<br />
R: I mean, there are millions of different, ah, possibilities, there and discounting any one just because someone thinks that it might be sexist, that's just...I mean, that's absurd! There shouldn't be any hypothesis that we dismiss out of hand without at least taking a look at.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
R:Ah<br />
<br />
J: Did that guy, last year, like, say something very, ah, derogatory, and negative, did he say that women were not as intelligent as men, or was he talking about...<br />
<br />
R: Not at all! No, you can see the, ahm, the whole speech he gave online, and I linked to it through my blog and I've posted about Summer a number of times, uhm, and if you read through his speech, I mean, it's not at all derogatory, and it certainly doesn't sound like he's coming from a sexist place.<br />
<br />
S: No<br />
<br />
R: It, it sounds like he's saying "people are researching the problem, and here are some of the theories they've got going." He's not saying that he subscribes to any one of them, he's just putting them out there, because that's what he was asked to do for his speech, and I think that that's, you know, and if-if people disagree with that hypothesis, I think that the correct response should never be "That' sexist, shut up", it should be "Here's why you're wrong..."<br />
<br />
S: Uhum...<br />
<br />
R: "Here's the evidence that says you're wrong"<br />
<br />
S: Right, I agree, I agree.<br />
<br />
R: And, I mean, if there's evidence that says it's not true then, you know, show the evidence, don't...<br />
<br />
S: Right. It's interesting, I mean, I, you know, my personal opinion, you know, having looked at the evidence and thinking about this for a while, is that there are still some cultural and historical forces at work in terms of the penetration of males and females in different profession, but I think that we're moving towards a distribution that is more and more self selective. I think that, in our country, as women are more free to pursue the careers that they want, that they are winding up in careers that are more amenable to their desires, and their talents. For example: women are overtaking men in the healthcare profession. They have no problem penetrating any - any corner of the healthcare profession. There are other fields which, and the reason why I think that there is a huge genetical component to this is because when we see which fields women are not making gains in, like engineering, that tends to fit quite well with the basic neuroscience, which is showing that women don't like engineering. It's not that they're not necessarily good at it, they just really don't like it to the same degree that men do. So maybe it's not that surprising that they're not penetrating that - that field. From a practical point of view, what this means is, should we just make everything we can to make sure that both men and women are free to pursue whatever career that they want, or do we have to, at the top end, work from the top down to make the numbers look good? Do we have to, like, force women into fields that they're not going in to spontaneously, or have some kind of affirmative action to make the numbers look good?<br />
<br />
J: Sounds like bossing to me<br />
<br />
R: I don't think that you're gonna, you're gonna force women into position that way.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the way you do that is with quotas. Right? So you set up quotas, so that, specially like, in the upper echelons of academia, to make sure that 50% of women are in, a, engineering departments.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: That's the - that's the practical point of view, and I think if you look at all the evidence, if you look at what's happened, it would probably be better to work from the bottom up to just make sure that there's no glass ceiling, that women do whatever they want.<br />
<br />
J: Well, I'll speak for all software engineers out there: We want more women in the field.<br />
<br />
R: Hah.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Yea, good luck with that, Jay, Huh haha. And, and that's ah, pretty much what Harvard's new office is working on. Like, one of the mains things I noticed from the report they put out, they, they really seem to be focusing on improving the lifestyle of students and faculty who choose to have families, like, increase funding to child care, uh, facilities and child care scholarships and things like that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, which is excellent. It's all excellent.<br />
<br />
R: Definitely, 'cause I...speaking to women who are in academia, I hear that a lot, like, "you make a choice: either you're going to have a family and therefore go into private industry, or you're gonna go into academia and give up hopes of having a family.<br />
<br />
S: Yea, definitely the plainfield needs to be leveled in terms of just, biological functions, absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Right. Women shouldn't have to make a choice when it comes to that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I do, although, one final comment is, I do find it a little ironic that, you know, while there's still so much concern about making sure that women have a fair shake in, in academia, if you look at the younger generations, women are kicking guys' butts at school. I mean, they are.<br />
<br />
R: Indeed, they are.<br />
<br />
S: They, the develop academic skills at a younger age, their temperament and what not, it seems to serve them better during their school years. Boys seem to have a shorter attention span and are more distractible, whatever.<br />
<br />
R: Also boys are smelly and have germs.<br />
<br />
B: Good touch.<br />
<br />
S: You know, in thirty or forty years, you know, we may be, the roles may be totally reversed, we may be having to talk very seriously about how we could get more guys into academia.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But, we will see.<br />
<br />
=== Stephen Hawking on Space Travel <small>(16:00)</small>===<br />
S: One final news item, and this is just a quick follow-up to last week's podcast. We had talked to Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer about manned space flight, and he was very much in favor of NASA funding manned space flight, as opposed to just robotic space exploration and his primary justification for that was that, you know, we need to pop, to uh, colonize other world, so we're not, so that we don't have all of our eggs in this one basket called Earth. But, by coincidence, Stephen Hawking has, I don't know if it was a lecture or an article that he wrote, but he has come out and very much in favor of manned space flight, and for the very same reason that Phil Plait cited, was that we need to colonize worlds other than the Earth. He writes that the survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe, because there is an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth. So I just thought that was interesting because it was, you know, right on the heels of last week's podcast where we made that point. <br />
<br />
R: See Phil? Just as smart as<br />
<br />
R&S: Steve Hawking<br />
<br />
S: Right, absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
== Questions and e-mails <small>(17:09)</small> ==<br />
S: Let's do a couple of e-mails and then we do have an interview this week. We have an interview with Zachary Moore who does the Evolution 101 podcast, we'll be getting to that in a moment. But first a few e-mails.<br />
<br />
=== Consensus on Global Warming<small>(17:20)</small>===<br />
S: E-mail number 1 comes from Mark Goddard, uh, who simply gives his location as "The US", Mark writes: <blockquote>I would like to inform Mr. Novella that consensus is not a scientific term. He should make his decisions based on evidence, rather than basing them on a consensus. I thought that's what skeptics were supposed to do. It would also serve Mr. Novella right to reacquaint himself with his list of logical fallacies, as argument for the existence and seriousness of anthropogenic global warming is clearly reliant on the argument from authority. He believes in global warming because there is a consensus.<br />
<br />
Real skeptics follow the evidence. I suggest that Steve do some actual research before reaching a conclusion, and if he finds some evidence to support his predetermined conclusion, then he should discuss that on the show. Evidence for or against the idea of global warming would be more informative than a broken-record repetition of "consensus, consensus, consensus..."</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, thanks for writing the e-mail, Mark. We appreciate the question and the feedback. And this is - this is an excellent topic 'cus we deal with this issue quite a bit and it really gets to the heart, I think, of scientific skepticism. Ah, so, I do think that there's a difference between the argument from authority and having an appropriate level of respect for a consensus of a scientific opinion, because, you know, honestly, most of us, all we have in the areas outside of our, whatever, our narrow field of expertise, and if you're not a working scientist that's all areas of science, is a distillation from the consensus of scientific opinion. I think that if you think that your own personal reading of the evidence somehow supersedes that, that is, you know, incredibly arrogant. And actually at the same time, it's naive. I mean, it really means that you don't understand the - ah - the gulf that exists between, you know, the amount of information that we have as laypeople versus the amount of information that scientists at the cutting edge of any discipline have, so, to look at this another way when I am conveying a consensus of a scientific opinion I'm not saying that "this claim is true because there is a consensus", I'm saying there's a consensus because it's probably true. And the reason why I can say that, my, my, premise to this is that if you have a mature scientific discipline there has been, you know, decades of robust, transparent, open-debate about an issue, a specific question or a specific scientific discipline, and a fairly solid consensus emerges from the evidence and the research and the debate, that consensus is very reliable. It's not necessarily true, it can be wrong. Science is always tentative and contingent and amenable to revision if new evidence, or ways of thinking about things comes to light, but we can rely, to some degree on a hard earned, robust consensus of scientific opinion. At the very least, if you disagree with that consensus you better have a damned good reason for doing so. And rather - and just dismissing it as an argument from authority is not appropriate. And that is an actual abuse of that logical fallacy. Uh, I do think that when people get into trouble with the Argument from Authority is investing authority in an individual scientist. Any individual can be biased, quirky, can just be wrong for whatever reason, but when you have a community of scientist, you know, hammering out the issues over a long period of time there is some legitimate authority that you can invest in that. <br />
<br />
J: So in other words, ah, the consensus here is that this guy is a jerk?<br />
<br />
S: Hah. No, I think that, you know, this is a very common misunderstanding about the Argument from Authority, but then again, if you do take it to that extreme, to say that basically you can never refer to the scientific community, the opinion of either, uh, the scientific community as a whole or specific organizations that have, you know, panels of experts that have reviewed the evidence and come to some consensus opinion, if you just routinely dismiss all of those, then what do we have again to rely upon? Uh...again, I think that it's arrogant to think that as a layperson who hasn't spent a career, you know, studying this data who isn't intimately familiar with the technical literature, that your opinion somehow is, ah, can supersede those of scientists that breathe this data.<br />
<br />
J: Well, he said that you have no evidence, Steve, he flat out said that you're just ...<br />
<br />
S: Well, he did, he also made a few assumptions in his last paragraph there. He assumes that I have not done some research, again, on my level. Again, I'm not a cosm-climatologyst, this is not my area of expertise, and the farther away I get from my area of expertise the more I have to rely upon the consensus of scientific opinion, which I think is the appropriate thing to do. Uh, but he also made a lot of assumptions. That, that were not correct. I've actually been reading quite extensively about this, specially since it keeps coming up a lot as a topic on our show, so I'm trying to inform myself as best as I can about the actual issues about the Global Warming. And there is quite a lot of evidence for man-made Global Warming. There is - there is Global Warming in fact. There is increasing CO2 levels. There is a plausible connection between the two. There is a receding of the glaciers and, and uh..and the polar icecaps. These things are all, you know, being documented to an increasing level and every time skeptics say "Well, this data is, is not great and NASA puts up another satellite, or whatever, some new more sophisticated way of collecting the data is, is put out there, the data comes back even more in favour of man made global warming. So, the...the really...It really does seem to be converging on this consensus, but there's still, and I have said this before, there's still..uh... it seems a lot of legitimate uncertainty about the degree of the man made contribution to global warming, about how to extrapolate it to the future, uh, and about the degree to which this is, uh, more of a natural trend or warming trend that we're having. Uh, clearly there is some man-made global warming and even some of the hardest skeptics will admit that, it's...the debate really is about the relative contributions of man made versus, versus natural causes, and I, and I do admit that there is, of course, some degree of uncertainty there.<br />
<br />
J: And I also have the sneaking suspicion that the writer of the e-mail doesn't agree with what you're conclusions are. I ...<br />
<br />
S: Yea, I mean, usually when people start to get nasty with logical fallacies is because they don't...they don't accept the position that I'm taking. Nobody...nobody has chided me. Nobody from this, none of our listeners have, uh, chided me for, for example stating that greater than 98% of practicing scientists support evolution over creation. That's an argument from authority too. If you apply the criteria the same way. But it's more saying that "hey, there is a robust scientific consensus for the fact of evolution." Uh, and it's not an argument from authority to point that out.<br />
<br />
B: I think that, that fallacy though, is definitely one of the ones that is most easily abused when trying to employ it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I agree.<br />
<br />
B: People just throw it out there like "Oh, logical fallacy!", well, no, not really.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, Science has some legitimate authority to it. Because the method, the method works, the institutions basically work...Well, let's move on.<br />
<br />
=== God and the Big Bang<small>(25:01)</small>===<br />
S: We do have another - and this is our second audio e-mail question. This one come from Joel Kerbrat whose, uh, cypher name is "Jokermage". So let's play his audio e-mail now:<br />
<blockquote> Hello. I love the podcast. It's been really helpful and informative. I do have a quick question, or, well, I'm just trying to get your opinion on a particular argument I encounter a lot when I'm discussing the existence or non-existence of god. Uh, I'll be able to quote you the literal text of one of the people I was having this discussion with: "assuming that The Big Band Theory is in any way correct, and going back far enough, you come to a time when there was quite literally nothing. Where did this something which led to the creation of the universe come from from?" And from my perspective this would qualify as an argument from ingnorance. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang or before <i>before</i> the Big Bang so they always say "what's before that? What's before that?" and, honestly, we don't know or we're still looking there. And for some people the fact that we haven't reached that point yet, or may never reach that point says "oh, there must be a god there". Well, I'm just interested on what your guys' take is on this particular question..uhm...Thanks for your time! Bye! </blockquote><br />
S: Okay, well, thanks again Joel for sending us in that audio e-mail. This is a question that we deal with frequently. This is a good old god of the gaps argument. The idea that wherever there is a gap in our current scientific knowledge that is where God is. God caused that thing that we have not yet explained through naturalistic or scientific explanations. <br />
<br />
R: I have when people do that, seriously! Because it's like you put a period at the end of a sentence and you just say "well, that's it! Everybody can just go home now, there's nothing more to see here" instead of trying to explore things further.<br />
<br />
E: It's definitely lazy. If nothing else.<br />
<br />
<br />
R & S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: It is lazy. It is lazy.<br />
<br />
J: Well, it's opportunistic as well. I mean, people are always looking for a way to prove god exists so, you know, like, that's the whole point to "god of the gaps". There's a gap there, ugh, science can't currently define what it is and they jump on it.<br />
<br />
B: The problem is though that that little god of the gap might be around for quite some time.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah! One might *something I didn't understand that Steve said*<br />
<br />
B: That might be the last to go because we just can't know what happened before the Big Bang<br />
<br />
S: Although if you recall a couple of weeks ago...<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, yea, I still don't buy that.<br />
<br />
S: Science or Fiction was inferring what happened before the Big Bang by the way the Universe looks today so there may be windows into that. It's hard to say, there's nothing that we can really extrapolate from current knowledge to know how we would even investigate what happened before the Big Bang or what caused it.<br />
<br />
J: Why don't we just never talk about the Big Bang again, you know what I mean?<br />
<br />
R: Ha ha ha ha. You know what? God did it. That was easy.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, fine. I'll give you that one, right?<br />
<br />
B: Here's my big problem with finding out - trying to figure out what happened before the Big Bang: If the Big Bang created not only Space but Time, so there was no time, there was no space before the Big Bang, so before the Big Bang no space, no time...so how could you say "what happened <i>before</i> there was time when there was no time?<br />
<br />
S: Well, what I'll say about that, Bob, is trying to grasp the Big Bang and the existence of the Universe in English, you know, in words evolved to describe our everyday world and they just are not up to the task. You don't have the language and therefore you don't have the concept to really even grasp that question. The only way we can really deal with it at this point in time is to do mathematical concepts so at some point we may be able to come up with some mathematical description of what happened "before" the Big Bang, although before is probably is probably not the right word, you know what I mean? Or the right concept.<br />
<br />
R: But you know, we could talk about all day about the Big Bang but I think that the important thing to remember is that at one point we thought that god threw the sun across the sky is a chariot and if we had just stopped there and said "well, that's that" we wouldn't know jackshit today! <br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: But instead, you know, we moved forward and we put that idea aside in favor of scientific inquiry.<br />
<br />
S: Right, and that's the most important point, I think, of all this, is that you shouldn't ever use the god of the gaps argument to end scientific inquiry.<br />
<br />
R & J: Yeah <br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Zachary Moore <small>(29:42)</small> ==<br />
S: Joining us now is Zachary Moore. Zach! Welcome to The Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
ZM: Hi! Thank you very much! Glad to be here.<br />
<br />
R: Hey Zach!<br />
<br />
S: Uh, Doctor Zach as he is sometimes called, is a fellow podcaster. He does the Evolution 101 Podcast which we've mentioned before on the show and is an excellent podcast. He is a PhD in molecular biology and also the author of a blog called The Writings of a Mad Scientist. Uh... He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cincinnati and he's currently a graduate assistant. Is that still accurate?<br />
<br />
ZM: Uh, post-doctoral assistant.<br />
<br />
S: Post-doctoral assistant at the University of Cincinnati, in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.<br />
<br />
ZM: Actually it's...I'm now at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.<br />
<br />
S: Ah! Your website is not updated!<br />
<br />
ZM: I just updated it the other day.<br />
<br />
S: Okay! <br />
<br />
ZM: I'm sorry about that.<br />
<br />
S: So he's currently a post-graduate assistant at the University of Texas. So, Zachary, we've been listening to your Evolution 101 Podcast, they are excellent. How did you get interested in doing that? <br />
<br />
ZM: Well, it's...ah, you know, I kinda fell into it and I never dreamed that it would get quite as popular as it has been. Uh..I don't know if you're familiar with uh... Reggie Finley, who also goes by the name The Infidel Guy. He's got a website called TheInfidelGuy.com and uh...he's had a number of guests on, uh, to talk about evolutionary theory and well, one of the ones that he had on several times was, uh I guess that you've also had was Massimo Pigliucci<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
ZM: And <br />
<br />
S: MASSIMO! As we call him...<br />
<br />
ZM: Massimo!, yeah, he's a great guy. Love his blog, actually. He's really funny. Ahh...Anyway, so he had some, ah, some interest among the people that listen to his show - he's got like a webcast - and they would like to see, like, a regular show that was within his sort of aegis that would just do evolution discussion and it was to be titled ''Evolution 101'' and it was going to be once a week, an hour show that he would host and initially it was supposed to be Massimo primarily although what happened was that he got sort of tied up with a bunch of things and he couldn't commit the time and so he put the word out that if there was anybody else who would like to contribute to that, that he'd be happy to share it around, maybe have like a rotating guest host or something like that so I was kind of nominated/volunteered for it and I actually did the first episode of that, it was a two-hour long premier special and then Massimo did the next week and after that time Regie sort of ran out of the time on his own to do that extra show and so sort of languished for a couple months and people started talking again and they said "oh we'd really, we really loved that and it'd be nice to have something on a regular basis even if it's not that much" and I sort of joined the conversation not really volunteering to pick it up myself but I was just saying "yeah, it was a great idea, it was fun for me to do it, I really don't have the resources or equipment to run a webcast like that on my own." Just sort of throwing it out there I said, "I suppose I could do a podcast," or something like that and somebody said "well why don't you do that?" and I said, "well OK, I'll give it a try."<br />
<br />
S: And the rest is history!<br />
<br />
ZM: And the rest, as they say, is history! So I just, I just recorded the first one, just sort of on the fly and threw it out there and, and ahm... I think that it's up to like five thousand downloads by now. <br />
<br />
J?: Excellent!<br />
<br />
ZM: It's not a huge amount but uhm... you know, I guess it's okay for a small little thing that is just me doing it every Saturday morning in my pajamas and throwing it out there on the internet for people.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, so you podcast wearing clothes? This is ...<br />
<br />
ZM: I try to, yes.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca... likes to... She thinks it's funny to tell everyone that she does it topless.<br />
<br />
ZM: Oh, okay<br />
<br />
J: But she hasn't posted any pictures yet or anything, there's no proof. <br />
<br />
ZM: Oh, be sure to post some, I'll appreciate that.<br />
<br />
R: You know, a little mystery is always good.<br />
<br />
ZM: Sure.<br />
<br />
R: Maybe the pajamas then, I'll consider that.<br />
<br />
S: Uhm, so you must have had an interest in evolution and evolution of science 'cause..<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, I have. Yeah, uhm...it was, it's funny 'cause uhm it was never something that I really...Like when I was studying science it was always just sort of, you know...There... and I didn't really give much interest of the whole evolution/creation debate.<br />
<br />
S: Uhum...<br />
<br />
ZM: But the more I started doing things on the internet and the more I sort of realized how much bad information there is out there it started picking my interest more and more and I started reading some stuff like, you know, Richard Dawkins and other things like that.<br />
<br />
S: Uhum<br />
<br />
ZM: And really started getting interested in it..and I started spending a lot of time at TalkOrigins and I'm actually a moderator at a website for people who have left the Christian faith. It's called exchristian.net and uhm, I sort of specialize in the science part of that forum so I moderate a lot of the stuff that comes up about evolution, creationism...So I, I just sorta got used to thinking about that, and not being an expert, I mean I'm not an expert, I'm just I'm just some guy with a degree who nows where to look up the right stuff to find out the answers to these things. So anyway, that gave me a little bit of confidence to uh...to put together the podcast.<br />
<br />
S: Yea, I mean I think it's interesting because for me the evolution-creation debate that was my gateway topic into skepticism in general, I mean, that was the first time I really got involved.<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: In a pseudoscience and examining it uhm, even back in high school. And I've kept up with it ever since, even though, you know, like you, I'm in the medical field, you know, I don't have a degree in Evolutionary Biology<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I thought...And I don't know if it's because of the.. of creationism, but there seems to be a tremendous amount of high quality information available for the layperson on evolution in general and also on the evolution-creation debate, so it's one of those topics where if you really want to be an exceptionally well informed layperson you can be, I mean, the information is out there. <br />
<br />
ZM: Right, it does take a bit of work, I mean, Dawkins is great, uh, but he can be thick for some people. The people I'm mostly trying to reach are people like, uh, like for example my mother, people who know nothing about science, you know, and tis was actually something, uh, some of the talent that I honed while I was coming up to the graduate school ranks, uh, I would, in an effort to be able to make my data accessible to the general audience whenever I would put together a presentation I would alway give it to my mother and if she could understand what I was saying I figured I could give the same talk to just about any audience without any problem and so I try to, sort of, distill concepts and make them accessible to like, really really average, you know, Joe on the street.<br />
<br />
S: Uhum, and it is a great skill to have and it is a separate skill and not all scientists can do that. They may be brilliant in their area but they may not have that completely separate skill set that is needed to convey their discipline to the public at large.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right, and most of the writing we do, and uh, you've published a couple of things, I looked over your brain paper, uh, the scientific writing is incredibly complex<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
ZM: And is almost completely inaccessible. I showed one of my papers to my father-in-law and he looked at it said "I think there's two words in there that I understood"<br />
<br />
R: haha<br />
<br />
S: Hahh<br />
<br />
R: I usually get in trouble getting passed the titles.<br />
<br />
ZM: Hah, So, it's kind of like the opposite of the way I'm thinking normally, or when I'm in the lab, you know, is uhm... instead of making things as scientific precise as possible to sort of, not dumb it down, but sort of generalize things and try to find good analogies so that everybody can come to the same understanding<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and it's difficult to do that without, as you say, without dumbing int down. I mean, to...to convey, you know, the richness and the detail of the scientific theory but translate it in to terminology that - that a layperson can understand.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right. And it's really hard to do that in ten minutes or less hah<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
ZM: Which is what I try for, uh, talk... My cousin's experienced in the dramatic arts and he told me that after I've chosen a ten minute cut-off because uh, most people when they're trying to learn about something like that the ten minutes is ah...about as long as the average person can really commit to something like that, specially if it's complicated.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah ... Ten minutes is reasonable, I mean, I've heard twenty minutes is really like, the upper limit of attention span. Like, if you're sitting in any lecture type of environment you can pay attention and process information for about twenty minutes, after that you're really not processing information anymore. Unless there is something dynamic about that. Then, which of course podcasts are not, they're passive, you're just sitting and listening to them.<br />
<br />
ZM: Exaclty...<br />
<br />
B: So Zach, will you now go to twenty minutes?<br />
<br />
ZM: Well, you know, I do go over sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: I think you can afford to, they're pretty - they're pretty quick.<br />
<br />
J: You know, no matter how much you dumb it down though, uhm, a true creationist won't even take the time to try to understand evolution because they reject it. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: So you're not pitching this to - to true believers. You're pitching this to people who are either on the fence or don't really have an opinion<br />
<br />
ZM: Absolutely! And I think most of the people just kind of fall because they can't really grasp evolution, it just seems too complex. Creationism, even though is, it does violate the simplicity Occam's razor it's just lil' bit more intuitive, you know? And that's kind of a problem. Science is very often, it's not intuitive. So hopefully the laypeople and most of the people that I talk to who are just, you know, just on the cusp of understanding, once they can really understand it then they're like "Oh, well of course that makes so much sense"<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I totally agree. Once you... That's how I feel about evolution. To me it makes much much more sense than anything else you can come up with.<br />
<br />
ZM: Right<br />
<br />
R: Zach, how do you feel about directly debating creationists?<br />
<br />
ZM: Ah... Well, let's see, <!-- Help needed to distinguish what was said at 40:45 --> said that we shouldn't right? And Dawkins agreed with him so I don't wanna go against Dawkins, but uhm...<br />
<br />
R: Wait, what kind of a critical thinker are you? <!-- Help needed to distinguish what was said at 40:54 --> authority <br />
<br />
ZM: Ah... I don't know. I'm generally, you know generally I don't really have a problem with engaging in open discussion with anybody on any topic, so...there are some people that write in - they're usually not true believes I don't think, unless they're sort of couching things and like a third person like "Oh, my friend has this problem that" So probably <br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I got this itch...<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, so probably I don't really interact with too many true believers, but I do interact with a bunch of people that have honest questions, at least that's what they come across as.<br />
<br />
J: Well, before you signed on Steve said that you used to get into a lot of fist fights over this, we wanna know if that's true.<br />
<br />
R: Haha<br />
<br />
ZM: Me?<br />
<br />
J: I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding...<br />
<br />
S: You do list on your interests... you list Jeet Kune Doo as one of your interests.<br />
<br />
B: Jeet Kune DO!<br />
<br />
S: Jeet Kune DO whatever...<br />
<br />
B: Way of the Intercepting Fist. Is that..In what capacity is that? Do you actually study it or...<br />
<br />
ZM: Ahm, I have, since I've been down in Texas I have. And I studied it when I was in Cincinnati. I'm a fairly big guy anyway so I don't really worry about stuff like that. It was a friend of mine got into it really seriously and, uhm, sort of convinced me to try it and I actually really liked it, it was a lot of fun<br />
<br />
B: For those that don't know that's the style that Bruce Lee originated <br />
<br />
ZM: Right, right it's actually a style per say and more of a philosophy of martial arts. And it was a lot of fun.<br />
<br />
B: Exactly.<br />
<br />
ZM: Uh, Dan Inosanto who's the guy that sort of runs the whole thing nowadays<br />
<br />
B: Yeah! Did you meet - did you meet him?<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah! Yeah! He came to<br />
<br />
B: OH wow! Awesome!<br />
<br />
ZM: Yeah, and uhm, what's his philosophy? Oh, it's something along the lines of "learn what you like, absorb what is useful"<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's pretty much Bruce Lee I think ...<br />
<br />
ZM: So, uh, they teach a lot of different styles there and you sort of decide on your own what you're gonna specialize in. And I really liked Kali and<br />
<br />
B: Yes!<br />
<br />
ZM:<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:06:58)</small> ==<br />
<br />
Item #1: New study finds that in general people become progressively less happy as they get older.<br />
Item #2: Astronomers have discovered a giant intergalactic ball of hot gas - 100 million degrees and 3 million light years in diameter.<br />
Item #3: Robotics scientists have developed artificial sensors able to give robots touch sensation so discriminating they can discern Lincoln's image on a penny.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=10118Template:SGU episode list2015-09-06T17:31:15Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 46 as completed; 47 as in progress.</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
<br />
Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2014|2014]], [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
<br />
{|<br />
!Key:<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2015"><big>'''2015'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 529]], Aug 29 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 528]], Aug 22 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 527]], Aug 15 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 526]], Aug 8 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 525]], Aug 1 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 524]], Jul 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 523]], Jul 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 522]], Jul 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 521]], Jul 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 520]], Jun 27 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 519]], Jun 20 2015 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 518]], Jun 13 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 517]], Jun 6 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 516]], May 30 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 10-Hour Show]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"| <span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_46&diff=10117SGU Episode 462015-09-06T17:27:29Z<p>Jim Gibson: Complete transcription.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 46<br />
|episodeDate = 7<sup>th</sup> June 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:phil_shuttle.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|guest1 = PP: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Plait Phil Plait]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2006-06-07.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=35.0<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== The World Survives June 6th, 2006 <small>(00:50)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. This is your host Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. Today is Wednesday, June 7, 2006. With me tonight as always are Bob Novella ...<br />
<br />
B: Hello, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Perry DeAngelis, ...<br />
<br />
P: Hey! How is everyone. I'd like to say a special holler out to Luna, my single fan on the forums. I'll be on there shortly, my friend. Don't worry.<br />
<br />
S: ... Evan Bernstein, ...<br />
<br />
E: Hello, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Rebecca Watson.<br />
<br />
R: Hello to all the rest of the listeners who are my fans on the forum.<br />
<br />
B: Ohhhhh.<br />
<br />
P: Hey.<br />
<br />
S: So, well, we survived Y2K.<br />
<br />
P: We did.<br />
<br />
S: We did. We survived planetary alignments, ...<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Many times over.<br />
<br />
S: ... Armageddon, ...<br />
<br />
R: The movie?<br />
<br />
E: Armageddon.<br />
<br />
S: ... and multiple predictions of comets and asteroids hitting the Earth and destroying everybody.<br />
<br />
E: Hale-Bopp, Hale-Bopp.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Now, we have survived Satan's day, June 6, 2006.<br />
<br />
B: Ooooh. Dun, dun, dun!<br />
<br />
R: I thought that this one was much better than June 6, 1906, personally speaking.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: I think this one was better.<br />
<br />
S: This had an extra zero in it.<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, you and your past lives, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
R: It's just a little more evil this time around. I felt it.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, a lot of websites I saw, a lot of news items on TV dealing with this whole business of June 6, 2006 or 666. A lot of people going crazy. Just imagine.<br />
<br />
P: The Omen was rereleased. That was pretty horrific.<br />
<br />
B: That was a great marketing ploy, but ...<br />
<br />
P: It sure was. It sure was. <br />
<br />
B: I found a great word today. What is<br />
"[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia&defid=1710344t hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia]"?<br />
<br />
R: Well I'm just to take a stab in the dark and say it's the fear of the number 666.<br />
<br />
B: How did you guess?<br />
<br />
R: I'm a genius.<br />
<br />
B: That is the most bizarre phobia word I've ever come across, but it's nice to know that it actually exists and somebody made that up. There are people that even take that fear to extreme. They won't have anything to do with, say, a fraction like two thirds, which, of course, you know is a repeating decimal .666. So they'll even stay away from anything that has to do with two thirds or even other fractions that result.<br />
<br />
P: I'm not sure I see the problem, here.<br />
<br />
E: Well, they can't cook meals. They don't know how to measure the ingredients. Two-thirds &mdash; "Oh, no! Ahhh!".<br />
<br />
B: Can you imagine that. Also, did you know that 50 Protestant churches in the Netherlands had a 24-hour prayer marathon. Also 23 countries had these things, including the United States, Canada, and Britain.<br />
<br />
S: That's why we survived! That's it! We owe our survival to their prayers. They kept the evil guys at bay.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but shouldn't things have gotten worse now considering the recent research they've done on prayer?<br />
<br />
R: No, I think we made it through all right because I sacrificed couple of chickens, so.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, awesome, awesome!<br />
<br />
S: Of course, this stoked the flames of fear of Satanists. They were going to come out and be running wild in the streets, killing babies, and sacrificing people.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what I heard last night?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: I thought it was a dog in my garbage can, but, oh well.<br />
<br />
P: Same thing.<br />
<br />
B: Now, did you know that linking 666 and the antichrist, or the devil, is pretty much not true? It's a misnomer.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, is this news to you, that (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
B: No.<br />
<br />
S: It's not even valid in terms of the book of Revelations, is that what you are saying?<br />
<br />
B: Right, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Actually, they believe, most theologians and scholars think that 666 was a code for a Roman Caesar that persecuted the Christians.<br />
<br />
R: For {{w|Nero}}.<br />
<br />
S: Nero.<br />
<br />
B: Well, Nero possibly, but more likely than Nero even is somebody I never even heard of: {{w|Domitian}}. Domitian was another Caeser that they think might of been the one that they were referring to instead of Nero. But, I typically hear Nero or somebody else.<br />
<br />
P: You got to go with Nero.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I think Nero is the prevailing opinion.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: That's because he's more famous. Thing like that always attract the more famous person.<br />
<br />
R: No, it's because the numbers translate to the letters. It's like 'N', 'R', whatever.<br />
<br />
P: He's just a cool, evil fat guy, that's all. He works better.<br />
<br />
E: Played a mean fiddle.<br />
<br />
P: Burn, burn the stuff down. He's cool. I'm on the Nero bandwagon.<br />
<br />
B: Well, scholars disagree with you.<br />
<br />
R: What scholars? I demand evidence.<br />
<br />
P: Scholars, schmolars! I'm Nero's man. End of story.<br />
<br />
R: If Perry and I are on the same team on something, so it's got to be true.<br />
<br />
P: That's all. Thank you. End of story.<br />
<br />
S: Argument from authority.<br />
<br />
B: If you're on the same team, is truly the apocalypse.<br />
<br />
S: That's one of the seven signs, I understand. <br />
<br />
R: Probably.<br />
<br />
=== Skepchick infiltrates Christian Scientists <small>(5:00)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now, Rebecca, you blogged a few days ago about infiltrating a cult. Why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
R: I went undercover as a Christian Scientist last week. It was scary.<br />
<br />
S: So what happened?<br />
<br />
R: Well, what I did was I just decided to go down to &mdash; they have a regular Sunday service. The mother church is located in Boston. It's their world headquarters, and for people who don't know, Christian Scientists &mdash; not the same as Scientologists. Some people get them mixed up.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: They're completely different breed of nut. Christian Scientists don't believe in modern medicine.<br />
<br />
S: It's worse than that. I don't know if that's where you're headed. They don't believe in reality.<br />
<br />
R: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: They think that all of reality is an illusion, so ...<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, they're anti-materialists, if you will.<br />
<br />
P: They do, however, believe in dentistry. They do!<br />
<br />
R: They pick and choose. I think some of them wear eyeglasses.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: It's, you know, whatever's convenient for them.<br />
<br />
S: Your physical health condition is a sign of your lack of faith.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: If you had perfect faith, then you would be immortal and in perfect health, because, hey, it's all just an illusion, anyway.<br />
<br />
R: Exactly.<br />
<br />
P: So you went in there and didn't ignite on fire or anything?<br />
<br />
R: I didn't, although I was starting to get a little worried as I sat there. It was kind of worrying. I kind of thought that maybe they'd drag me into their basement and try to brainwash me, but nothing like that happened. It was actually a little anti-climactic, because what they do mostly during their service is just they read from the Bible, and they pick very specific passages that can kind-of, sort-of support their weird point of view, and then they read from {{w|Mary Baker Eddy}}'s book called ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures''.<br />
<br />
S: She was the founder of Christian Science.<br />
<br />
R: The founder, yeah, exactly, and she was a big proponent of homeopathy, so she talks a lot about that, and basically about prayer healing you and things like that.<br />
<br />
S: And she was immortal, by the way, right up to the point when she died.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Doh!<br />
<br />
S: Her faith must have wavered just for a moment, and then she died.<br />
<br />
R: She probably deserved it.<br />
<br />
P: Clearly. When did she do this? When did she start this religion? Anyone know?<br />
<br />
S: End of the 19th century.<br />
<br />
P: So turn-of-the-century.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Right about the same time as chiropractic and all the other nonsense that came along. A lot of it.<br />
<br />
R: A lot of craziness.<br />
<br />
S: Spiritualism was very powerful back then, yup.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. The nice thing was I was invited back, because on the way out of the church, I was actually stuck in a small elevator with the main reverend guy.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
E: The high priest.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, the grand high poobah.<br />
<br />
P: The high (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
E: The Grand Wizard.<br />
<br />
R: His second and third in commands, and they grilled me on &mdash; they introduced themselves, and I just said "hi," and they said "What's your name?" and so I made up a name, because I'm paranoid, and they said "Oh, do you live around here?" and I said I live in Boston, yeah, and they said "Where do you work?" And this is like a 15-second elevator ride.<br />
<br />
E: Which felt like thirty minutes.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and I said "Oh, a restaurant, you know," and they start asking me what resaurant, and they want to talk about the restaurant industry, and then they invited me back. They actually invited me backed tonight. They were having some thing where people stand up and tell how they found Jesus, I guess, but unfortunately I couldn't.<br />
<br />
P: So they recognized you as a stranger?<br />
<br />
R: Apparently.<br />
<br />
P: In the whole flock?<br />
<br />
R: Apparently.<br />
<br />
P: That's impressive.<br />
<br />
R: They definitely singled me out. And it was also their annual meeting, which I didn't know when I first went, and so when I walked in they had tables with badges on them and stuff, and I had to sneak through. And so I wasn't sure if they pinpointed me as somebody who didn't belong there because I didn't have the badge on.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, definitely. You stank of being of the unclean.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and I was carrying medicated lip gloss, and I thought that maybe somebody saw it. I was kind of worried.<br />
<br />
S: Frightened your cover, huh?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: They tackled you.<br />
<br />
R: I'm probably going to go back.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it is good sometimes to study what people really believe. You learn a lot about human psychology and the nature of pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
R: It's interesting, if a little scary. So if one day I don't show up for the podcast, you know who to contact.<br />
<br />
S: We'll come after you. We'll give you exit counseling. We'll rescue you.<br />
<br />
R: I forgot to mention the reason why I went in the first place, actually. They've been in the news here lately because there's been an outbreak of measles, because, of course, they don't believe in the evils of vaccines.<br />
<br />
S: Shows lack of faith.<br />
<br />
R: Right. So, the faithless among them contracted measles. I think they're up to seven cases now here in Boston.<br />
<br />
E: Gross.<br />
<br />
P: We've got to go into that church coughing and hacking and blowing our noses, you know? That's what we've got to do.<br />
<br />
R: I'm sure I'm a walking petri dish. I took at least a dozen of them.<br />
<br />
S: The worst thing about them is that they eschew medicine, of course, but adults have the right to refuse to be treated, even though it may be a ridiculous decision based upon nonsense. They have the right to do that. But, of course, they refuse treatment for their children, and this issue crops up every now and then. Every now and then there is a dramatic case of some child who suffered for days on the couch from an obstruction in the intestines, and then eventually died, and that, in my opinion, that's child-abuse (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
E: Criminal.<br />
<br />
S: It's criminal neglect, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it's not just your opinion. That's just a fact. That's child abuse.<br />
<br />
S: That's the way it is. They don't have the right to make the decision for a minor.<br />
<br />
R: They're hiding behind the First Amendment, and it's pretty sickening that they can do it.<br />
<br />
S: It is. It is.<br />
<br />
P: They often go straight to jail when that happens.<br />
<br />
S: They have lost those cases. They have not successfully defended themselves on the basis of freedom of religion.<br />
<br />
R: Though, oftentimes when those cases come up, it's discovered that the parents who under trial will occasionally have things that happened in their past that nobody even knew about, like past babies that had died because they tend to be a very tight-knit community, and they cover for one another.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: Most of those wacked-out churches are insular.<br />
<br />
R: Right. So we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg, possibly.<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(11:48)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: I should say we have an interview this week coming up in a few minutes. We will be interviewing Phil Plait, who is the Bad Astronomer, but first let's do a few of your emails.<br />
<br />
=== Altruism and Evolution <small>(11:59)</small>===<br />
S: The first one comes from Marty Steitz from Minnesota, and Marty writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Great show. Absolutely one of my favorite podcasts! My wife eagerly awaits my lobbing the "Science or Fiction" her way after each show. Speaking of the Science or Fiction segment, I have a question about the altruism gene discovery as studied in the multicellular organism Volvox. You defined altrusim as "you do something which sacrifices your own Darwinian fitness in order for your relatives to survive." I was viewing this gene as somehow increasing fitness, such as by increasing the overall percentage of like genes passed on to future generations, since the individuals in a simple multicellular organism are highly related. So while you don't reproduce, your overall fitness is still higher than had you "gone it alone." Otherwise the altruism gene would be selected against, right? An analogous though far more complex situation might be the "altruism" of non-reproducing individuals in social insect species. Please set me straight if I'm looking at this incorrectly.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well, Marty you are correct in what you say, although that's actually what I was talking about. Maybe I wasn't clear that there are actually computer models that show that &mdash; and not just in simple organisms, even in primates, in complex organisms with complex behaviors &mdash; that if you are altruistic towards your kins, meaning if you take the hit and you die, but you save your cousin from the lion or whatever, that does result in a statistical advantage for having more of your genes represented in future generations, because your siblings and your cousins share a lot of your genes as well. So sacrificing your personal fitness, but meaning that you as an individual may not have offspring, but your kin fitness goes up, and then the net effect of that can be a statistical Darwinian advantage for your genes being passed on to future generations. So that's actually what I was talking about, and he is correct.<br />
<br />
=== Reply to 9/11 Hoax <small>(14:01)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: We had a lot of emails replying to our discussion of the 9/11 hoaxes. I wanted to select two representing kind of the spectrum of what we received. The first one comes from Michael Orticelli, who is a longtime listener of our show. How are you doing, Michael? He's been listening almost from the very beginning, I believe.<br />
<br />
B: Hey, Mike!<br />
<br />
S: Michael writes &mdash; he wrote a long email, so I am just going to read part of it.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I'm not sure what to think of you guys standing on one side of the offense of unknowns and firmly stating that anyone on the other side of the set of unknowns are the conspiracy theorists. The fact is when we don't have nearly all the facts in the 9/11 attacks, and there are so many unanswered questions, and so much speculation, it is kind of irresponsible as skeptics to simply state that anyone who believes there may very well be more to these events than meets the eye are the conspiracy theorists.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: He goes on, and I've actually had a couple of back-and-forths with Michael on this issue. The bottom line of his point is that he's basically making the statement that where there's smoke there's fire. There's too much anomalies. There are too many unanswered questions. There's got to be something going on. He would not endorse any specific conspiracy theory or even say that there was a conspiracy, just to say that there's something unknown here. What I say to that is that there really isn't anything unknown in terms of the basic facts of 9/11. Islamic extremists hijacked four jets, crashed two into the towers, one into the Pentagon, and one crashed in Pennsylvania. Those basic facts have been established beyond doubt, beyond any even sliver of a reasonable doubt. The so-called speculation or unanswered questions are all manufactured. They are manufactured by conspiracy theorists, who basically do anomaly hunting. The anomalies are often quite stupid. And, for example, it may just be one witness who had some detail in their testimony that was different than what other people were saying, and they'll dismiss the hundreds of witnesses who saw a passenger jet hit the Pentagon, and they'll say that this guy saw a missile, and they'll believe that guy. That's manufactured uncertainty. So our position is that if you look at all the evidence, if you read the independent analyses, and, again, I think the Popular Science one is a good one, because that's a science magazine, that the basic facts are not in question.<br />
<br />
=== More on 9/11 <small>(16:29)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The second email comes from Vincent Samartino. Now Vincent is kind of at the other end of the spectrum. He definitely believes that there was a conspiracy. He said, he writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I was just listening to your podcast on the subject. You should try and get a person that understands basic physics on your show. All of your hosts are completely clueless of reality.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
R: That's actually true.<br />
<br />
E: Good point. Good point. Yeah. Excellent point. Can't beat that.<br />
<br />
P: I deny reality. I deny physics.<br />
<br />
R: I became a Christian Scientist.<br />
<br />
S: I had a few emails back-and-forth with him.<br />
<br />
B: Did he get specific at all?<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yeah. He does. But he's regurgitating all of the standard conspiracy points. He didn't say anything that we hadn't talked about or heard before.<br />
<br />
P: I'm shocked!<br />
<br />
S: On a follow-up email he writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Just so you know, I'm not a Johnny-come-lately to when it comes to the subject of 9/11. You may find my essay on the subject interesting. By all means, input the names into the SSDI in the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: What that is talking about is that not all of the victims &mdash; not all of the passengers on the plane are listed if you look under their Social Security numbers on the Victims Compensation Fund, and he uses such ambiguous, flimsy evidence as that to basically argue that they didn't exist because they're not on this database. We focused a lot on the Pentagon. He basically believes that it was physically impossible to crash a jet into the Pentagon, and that's why he says that we are ignorant of physics.<br />
<br />
B: Why?<br />
<br />
P: The film footage is all faked?<br />
<br />
S: There is no footage that clearly shows a jet crashing into the Pentagon. The released footage we talked about last week just show this white streak followed by an explosion.<br />
<br />
P: What?<br />
<br />
S: He does believe that it was all fake, though, and I sent him dozens of pictures of plane parts in the Pentagon with the testimony of the people who were there and took the pictures, and he says they're all faked. How does he know they're all faked? Because it was impossible to crash the jet into the Pentagon.<br />
<br />
B: Why? What's so impossible about that?<br />
<br />
S: He starts with that premise, and that premise proves a conspiracy, and he can dismiss any other piece of evidence no matter how extraordinary it is, because he knows it &mdash; he's absolutely certain that it was impossible.<br />
<br />
B: Well, is there a force field around the Pentagon? Why can't you fly a plane into the Pentagon?<br />
<br />
S: He says because the ground effect ...<br />
<br />
P: Who told you about the force field, Bob?<br />
<br />
S: ... makes it impossible to fly a plane &mdash; he says 6 feet off the ground &mdash; that figure is also at the low end of the speculation. It could have been 20 or 30 feet. He says, basically, you couldn't fly a plane that low to the ground, which is stupid. It's just absolutely absurd.<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: I tried to get him to answer my question: what would happen, then, if you did try to crash a jet into the Pentagon? What would happen? Would you miss the ground? Could you not crash a plane?<br />
<br />
R: That's the key to flying. You just fall and miss the ground.<br />
<br />
S: He wasn't &mdash; the plane wasn't flying 20 feet off the ground. It was crashing into the ground at the Pentagon.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: It was crashing, not flying.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
P: Did he reply to that?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, he just on saying it was impossible. "You can't fly twenty feet off the ground. You don't know physics. Blah, blah, blah." He makes all kinds of arguments from authority. It just got nasty.<br />
<br />
R: Steve, it makes sense. You can't fly that low to the ground or you'd crash!<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Duh! Duh, Steve. Duh.<br />
<br />
S: I sent him testimony of pilots who said it would be pretty easy to do what that pilot did. Of course he has counter-testimony, but these are all from this insular group of conspiracy theorists. It was quite a discussion, but I could not nail him down on what he actually think would have actually happened if you tried to do that. This guy is as extreme as you get. Well, he thinks that the entire Congress is in on it, the entire mainstream media is in on it.<br />
<br />
E: And we're in on it.<br />
<br />
P: Thank God he was around to pierce the veil and let us all know the reality, which is what, exactly? I don't know. They made the plan up?<br />
<br />
R: I think somebody on my blog today commented that it's a vast conspiracy, a secret held by thousands of people, and can only be cracked by one, lone nut-ball on the web.<br />
<br />
P: One intelligent chimp.<br />
<br />
S: It is interesting. This demonstrates the psychology of conspiracy theories very well. He's convinced that he has seen the truth, and that is like being in the presence of God. He feels that he has the truth. That certainty enables him to just wipe away and explain away any apparent anomalies, to pick and choose the evidence that he wants. He knows there was a conspiracy, and it's kind of like being certain that your faith is true. Whenever you're absolutely certain that you're correct, that is the recipe for a closed belief system, and that's what these conspiracy theories are. So we have some more links on our website. There's one excellent testimony from someone who was there picking up body parts with uniforms on them, investigating the wreckage and the Pentagon, people who witnessed it and took pictures immediately after it, at least proving that they were right there. So, but I'm sure we'll hear more about this. In my experience, whenever I write or talk about conspiracy theories, that usually engenders the most vicious, vociferous response. They are, I think, the nuttiest true-believers that we deal with by far, by N order of magnitude.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you for listening, Vincent. Keep listening to the podcast.<br />
<br />
S: Keep listening.<br />
<br />
P: We'd like to hear your dissertation on Kennedy.<br />
<br />
S: Well he said, since you bring it up, he said "Conspiracies are possible. JFK, Pearl Harbor. That proves that conspiracies are possible." He also said religion proves that conspiracies are possible, because religion is a big conspiracy. What a non-sequiter.<br />
<br />
R: That's like saying macaroni and cheese proves that conspiracy theories are possible. What the hell does that mean?<br />
<br />
B: Of course, conspiracies are possible, but the scale that a lot of ...<br />
<br />
S: Yes, the scale!<br />
<br />
B: The scale is what just blows it out of reality. I really would argue that conspiracies at the scale that would be required are impossible.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
B: I cannot imagine all of Congress keeping a secret like this. It's really just impossible.<br />
<br />
S: It's ridiculous.<br />
<br />
B: It can't happen.<br />
<br />
S: I think that it probably follows &mdash; if you plotted the number of people that would have to be involved in a conspiracy, basically how big the conspiracy is, against the probability of the conspiracy collapsing and being revealed, there's probably an exponential relationship there.<br />
<br />
P: Maintaining the conspiracy garners the politicians nothing. Exposing the conspiracy would garner them the presidency.<br />
<br />
S: Come on! Ted Kennedy?<br />
<br />
P: Would be endlessly valuable to them.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yeah. But, Perry, the thing is, he knows it's a conspiracy. He's starting from that premise. So he just says they must have some other agenda, some deeper, darker agenda that we don't even know about.<br />
<br />
P: What?! <br />
<br />
S: Hey, you don't know how deep this rabbit hole goes, Perry.<br />
<br />
E: That's what he said.<br />
<br />
S: Black is white, and white is black. We're through the looking glass. That's the thing. Once you step into a world where you think nothing is as it seems, then logic evaporates. You can't argue with these people.<br />
<br />
E: Hey, Steve. It's funny you mention that line, because that's from Oliver Stone's JFK.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
E: And, of course, Oliver Stone is coming out with a movie this summer called ''World Trade Center''.<br />
<br />
S: Ahhgh!<br />
<br />
B: Ahhgh!<br />
<br />
E: It will be interesting to see what he does with that movie.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: I haven't read much on it, but I'm going to definitely ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we'll see if he takes the conspiracy position.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Phil Plait <small>(24:32)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is Dr. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer. Phil, welcome to the Skeptics Guide.<br />
<br />
PP: Hey, thanks for having me on.<br />
<br />
S: Phil runs the Bad Astronomy website and also has a blog and wrote the book ''Bad Astronomy''. He is an astronomer, who, on the side, debunks pseudoscience in his field of astronomy. He has taken on astrology, believers in a Moon Landing hoax, and Hoagland and the Face on Mars, and many other issues. So, Phil, why don't we start with the Moon Landing hoax. This is &mdash; you have a rather long article on that on your website. We were actually just talking about the 9/11 hoaxes, so this kind of plays into that, and why don't you just give us a summary of that.<br />
<br />
PP: Well, if I talk about this, Rebecca's not going to make fun of my mom, is she?<br />
<br />
S: I don't know. She's wont to do that.<br />
<br />
PP: I did listen to the last podcast, and I know how evil and mean and amoral you skeptics are.<br />
<br />
R: Ooooh. Oh, not us.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, thank you.<br />
<br />
S: We just had our high holy day yesterday, so we're especially mean today.<br />
<br />
PP: That's true. Yeah! The Moon Landing hoax. Let's see. Oh, golly, where to start? Basically, the idea is that there are folks out there who are &mdash; they call themselves skeptics, which makes my cockles of my heart warm.<br />
<br />
B: Deniers.<br />
<br />
PP: Yeah, deniers.<br />
<br />
R: Can we not talk about your cockles. This is a family show. Thanks.<br />
<br />
PP: I just know that it really bugs you, Rebecca. So, anyway, these people think that NASA faked the Moon landings. They call themselves skeptics, because they think that skeptics are just people who doubt things, but, in fact, skeptics are people who need evidence to be presented so that they can make a decision over whether something is real or not.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
PP: And if you're skeptical about the Moon landings, I'm all for it. But if you're just going to deny that they're real, that's just silly, because all of the evidence &mdash; and I do mean all of the evidence &mdash; shows that we went, and all the evidence that these people present, these Moon hoax proponents, these hoax believers, whatever you want to call them, all the evidence they have is just basically crap.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm. Yeah, again, from reading your article, and I've read about this in many other places, it's anomaly hunting, and the anomalies are only anomalies in their own minds. It's based upon their own ignorance.<br />
<br />
PP: Yeah, I mean, basically you can pull something out of context ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: ... and make it look like whatever you want. So if you look at an image of an astronaut standing on the Moon, you can say "Why is this, and why is that?" And it's easy to sow the seeds of doubt into a reader's mind, but, in fact, if you backup a little bit and look at this thing in context, you'll realize that there's a perfectly legitimate reason for the photograph to look like that.<br />
<br />
S: They don't really have any answer to those explanations. They just sort of reiterate their initial point.<br />
<br />
PP: Oh, well, they have answers, if you want to call them answers, that it was filmed in the desert, it was filmed on a soundstage, that NASA stole the money and ran, that this and that and the other thing. But it's just all crap. There's a ton of things that these guys produce. They say "There are no stars in the pictures. The shadows go the wrong way. The radiation would have killed them. The flag is flapping in the wind." This goes on and on and on, and all of these have really, really simple answers you can find on my website and elsewhere. Like, for example, the stars not showing up is simply because the sun was up. It was daytime on the Moon, and so they took the pictures with a fast shutter speed, and in the hundred and 50th of a second that the film was being exposed, stars don't show up.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
PP: And the stars are no brighter on the Moon than they are on the Earth, people. That's a misconception. They think that the Earth's atmosphere blocks a lot of light, so if you can see a lot of stars on the Earth, then on the Moon you should be able to see even more. But that's not true. In fact, the sky is fairly transparent to visible light. It's lets through like 90% of the light on a clear night. So standing on the Moon, you really wouldn't see any more stars than you would standing on the Earth at a dark sky. And if you go out on a dark night and take a picture for a hundred-and-fiftieth of a second, you're just not going to see any stars. It takes several seconds to see them. So that's one. You know, I could go on and on.<br />
<br />
S: What do they say in response to that, then?<br />
<br />
PP: Nothing. They actually don't like to talk about that.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah?! Oh, yeah?<br />
<br />
PP: That's it exactly, or one of them would just claim, again, he says "That's just wrong. You should see thousands of stars." I love that argument.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
PP: "Because I said so" is what they're saying.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Hey, Phil!<br />
<br />
PP: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: I just came across one of these &mdash; I hadn't hadn't seen before &mdash; and I loved your answer, especially since it's pretty much not reproducible even with today's technology. Some people claim that the walk &mdash; men walking on the Moon, and the rover &mdash; if you just kind of speed that up, it will be obvious that it was filmed on Earth. And your answer was very interesting, especially the rover, the effect of the rover and the dust. Could you quickly describe that?<br />
<br />
PP: I think the answer I gave was "That's just stupid," and I just left it at that.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's what I liked about it.<br />
<br />
PP: "You idiot!". No, this has caused a lot of confusion. There's a layer of dust on the surface of the Moon, and this is basically the rocks on the surface have been ground up after millions and billions of years of a meteorite impacts and the solar wind and all this. And it's called ''regolith''. It's an inch or two deep, but it's got a texture like anywhere between gravel and extremely fine like flour, and when the astronauts walk in it, for example, it leaves their footprint behind. Now, if you're in the rover and you spin out a little bit, the wheel kicks up this dust. You get some interesting effects. The gravel, basically, makes this beautiful parabolic arc. It goes up and it goes down, and that is similar to what it do on the Earth. So the interesting effect is that when the rover tire spits up the fine dust, the fine dust also goes up in an arc and falls straight back down, or not straight back down, but it makes this beautiful arc up and down. On the Earth, because we have an atmosphere, the dust billows. The fine powder is supported by the air, and you get this big cloud of billowing dust. But on the Moon, it doesn't do that. The stuff shoots up and shoots straight back down, and so you can see by looking at this video, that it was filmed in a place that had low gravity and no atmosphere. Now, low gravity and no atmosphere: in my mind, the simplest solution is they filmed it on the Moon!<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
PP: Okay, they didn't film it here, they filmed it on the Moon!<br />
<br />
E: Certainly wasn't on the Earth.<br />
<br />
PP: Now, this causes so much confusion with people, because people don't understand &mdash; and I hope you're all sitting down &mdash; a lot of people don't understand that the Moon has gravity. This is an old, old story, and you may have heard about this, that somebody went around taking a survey of people asking them if there was gravity on the Moon. If you let go of a pen on the Moon, would it go up, would it float, or would it fall? And something like half the people said it would float, because they don't understand that the Moon is a large body that has mass and, therefore, has gravity. And then if somebody said it would float, the follow-up question was: well, how did the astronauts stay on the Moon? And people would answer "Well, they wore heavy boots."<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
PP: Now, people swear this is a true story. I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but I do a lot of educational work, and I do know for a fact that a lot of people don't understand that there's gravity on the Moon. And so some one these hoax proponents, and you can find this online &mdash; say that "Why isn't the dust billowing away? The fact that it's coming back down shows it's on the Earth. If it were on the Moon, it would just be shooting up in the sky and going way." And so this is like &mdash; gew! &mdash; where do you start? Well first you start by picking up the pieces of your head after it's exploded from listening to something like that. But that's what it's like, and so you have to &mdash; you really sometimes have to back way off of the problem to be able to explain to people how this stuff works. Oh, oh, and you said if you speed up the film ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
PP: ... by a factor of two makes it look like astronauts are moving correctly. That is, in fact, not true. If you were to drop a rock on the Moon, it'll fall slower because the Moon has one-sixth the gravity of the Earth. If you speed the film up actually by factor of about two-and-a-half, it'll look like the rock drops at the correct speed, because if you do the math out, the time it takes something to fall goes as the square root of the ratio of the gravity of the Moon to the Earth. The square root of one-sixth is about one over 2.5, so if you speed the film up by two-and-a-half, it falls naturally. So if you speed the film by two-and-a-half, then things that fall, things that have to do with gravity look like they do on the Earth. The problem is, when the astronauts are just moving, waving their arms, or doing whatever they're doing, that is a natural movement that has nothing to do with gravity.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: So if you speed the film up by two-and-a-half, it looks like they're flailing their hands around at two-and-a-half times natural speed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah. Awesome.<br />
<br />
PP: And so really when you speed the film up, when they're doing things that aren't involving like walking or doing stuff like that, you can see that it looks ridiculous. But these guys don't tell you that, because if they tell you that, they can't sell you their books and videos and all the garbage that they sell.<br />
<br />
S: Is that the motive here? It's just self-promotion? Just something to do?<br />
<br />
PP: Um ...<br />
<br />
B: For some, I would think.<br />
<br />
PP: I have had dealings with all four of the big Moon hoax proponents, and this would be {{w|Bill Kaysing}}, the guy who originally came up with this whole idea back in the 1960s. He is now dead. {{w|Bart Sibrell}}, who has a video called ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon'', and he's the who {{w|Buzz Aldrin}} punched ...<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
PP: ... if you remember that a couple of years ago.<br />
<br />
B: Awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Did he? I don't remember that.<br />
<br />
PP: David Percy is a guy in England, who has a bulletin board where he discusses these things, and when people would show that his ideas were wrong, suddenly those answers would disappear off the bulletin board. And, last but not least is Ralph René, an American guy who claims he's a genius. He was with Mensa and all this stuff, and he is a curmudgeon and a crank and very much the crackpot. He was on Penn and Teller's TV show, and since this is a family-friendly podcast, I won't give the name. I believe on Penn's radio show he calls it ''Bulls Hit''. So René was on that show, and Penn had quite the fun time making fun of him. And so I've dealt with all four of these guys, and I can honestly say that Ralph René is just a crackpot. He thinks that ''pi'' is not equal to 3.1415. He's got all these claims. Bill Kaysing I think was sincere, but I think he was also, uh, ''(looney sound effect)'', okay? People say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead.<br />
<br />
R: Is that a technical term?<br />
<br />
PP: Yes, actually it is. If you talk to a psychologist, they will actually make that noise. People tell me not to speak ill of the dead, and I think, well, you know what, he caused a lot of grief when he was alive, and so if I'm going to make fun of him, I don't care if he's alive or dead.<br />
<br />
E: It's not like he can sue you.<br />
<br />
PP: And he threatened to, several times. He sent me several letters saying he was going to debate me and sue me and do all this stuff.<br />
<br />
B: After he died?<br />
<br />
PP: Uh, yes, in fact, John Edward and I have been channeling.<br />
<br />
B: All right!<br />
<br />
PP: As far as the other two go, I mean, the fact that David Percy had a bulletin board and started execising opinions that disagreed with his lets you know where he's coming from. <br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: Bart Sibrell I have no clue. This guy makes all these claims. I've debated him on the radio a couple of times. You know, in the end, I don't care if these guys are nuts or if they're lying, and those really are your only two choices. The fact is they're wrong, ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: ... and the evidence shows that they're wrong, and they leave off the evidence that you need to understand it. They're not going to tell you that speeding up the film makes half the things the astronauts do look stupid. They're not going to tell you that short exposures won't show up stars. They're not going to tell you that they're grossly confusing the different types of radiation when they say that the radiation should have killed the astronauts. Because if they tell you this, there's no reason to listen to them. And maybe they're selling books. Maybe they're selling videos, Maybe they just want the attention.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: Maybe they honestly believe that they have discovered the biggest cover-up in history. It doesn't matter. These guys are wrong, and I aims to show it.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Again, the reason why &mdash; I mean these guys are just cranks, and they're kind of pathetic. The Moon landing hoax doesn't get that much play in my experience. It's not as big as other ones, like the 9/11 hoax.<br />
<br />
PP: Well, no, it's not like 9/11, but before the web, it was out there.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
PP: It didn't get much notoriety.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
PP: But with the advent of of the internets, it got very popular. And then when Fox aired that abysmal ....<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah. <br />
<br />
PP: ... TV show in 2001, it became huge.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah. That was ... Yep.<br />
<br />
PP: That show came out, and I was able to get an advance copy, and so I was able to have a debunking, a point-by-point debunking of it ready literally right after it aired. So the next day I had my website up for it, and it got picked up by a lot of big venues like CNN and NASA actually pointed to it. And that really jumpstarted my career, and so I'm very conflicted about that Fox show. I owe everything to it, but geez I wish it had never aired. But the thing is, there have been other TV shows about it. It's been covered on Penn and Teller's show. I'm going down, actually, by the times this airs, I'll have already filmed an interview for the pilot for a series of TV shows that's going to air on a cable channel to be named later. Although I know what it is, I'm not going to tell you guys. But the pilot's about the Moon hoax, and they're going to interview Moon hoax people and everything. So it's out there, and, still, it's got some legs, even though it's total and utter crap.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the bad thing about these kind of wacky, cranky theories is that it really teaches people aberrant thinking and aberrant science, basically erodes the public's critical thinking capacity.<br />
<br />
PP: That's right. All of this stuff is a way for people to stop thinking and just believe what people are telling them. And this is the really pernicious nature of this. It's one of two really evil things about this, and, yes, it is "Listen to me. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." It is "I'm going to tell you a certain number of things, and you're going to believe me, and I'm not going to tell you this last thing, which is going to show you that I'm utterly wrong."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
PP: And so people turn off that part of their brain, if they ever had it turned on, which allows them to skeptically view what somebody's telling them. And, oh my gosh! Who would talk like that? You know, politicians, salesman, right? Shyster pseudoscientists, all these guys are going to keep information out of your grasp that you need to understand the situation. And the other evil thing about this is that a lot of these guys are doomsday people. They want to convince you that the world's about to end, and boy, oh boy, if you're going to do it, astronomy is a great way to do it. And they make all these claims that a giant planet's going to destroy the Earth, that an asteroid impact's going to destroy the Earth. Just two weeks ago this guy was claiming that a comet was going to impact in the Atlantic Ocean &mdash; ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: ... this was on May 25th &mdash; cause a tsunami, which was going to kill millions of people on the east coast of the United States.<br />
<br />
R: How come I didn't see that on the news, Phil?<br />
<br />
PP: It was all over the web, actually. It wasn't too hard to find.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, so it happened, then?<br />
<br />
PP: Okay, you're joking, Rebecca. Okay, this guy says a commet's going to the Earth on May 25th. It doesn't hit the Earth. So then he says "Did I say May 25th? I meant June 5th." And then that didn't happen. Now, if you go to his website &mdash; I have a blog entry I'm going to post here. It will already have been posted by the time you guys put this podcast up. He's actually claiming that it was going to hit, and that it did hit, but that it caused a tsunami, but then benevolent aliens came in and stopped it.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, thank God!<br />
<br />
PP: He's claiming victory. He's claiming victory! At this point I think "why the hell am I bothering to do this?" It's like digging a hole in water. These guys will always find some excuse to say they were right.<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
PP: You know: "It was a mass delusion. The government was covering it up. That's just what they want you to think."<br />
<br />
E: Anything but "I was wrong." It's never "I was wrong."<br />
<br />
PP: Anything but that. That's right.<br />
<br />
R: You see, that's just it Phil. You're not doing it for the crackpots like him. You're doing it for all those people who are just sort of checking in. They're on the fence. They're like "What's all that about?"<br />
<br />
PP: That's precisely right, and I'll tell you, nothing, nothing gets me angrier, nothing pisses me off more than people using pseudoscience, bad logic, anti-science I'm calling it now, to scare people. When you're scaring somebody because of this, that is just as low and slimy and evil as it gets. And our government's been doing that for a few years now. Not that I'm going to let politics rear its head into this conversation, but the politics of fear are very powerful politics, and nothing cracks open somebody's wallet like scaring them. And if you tell them, you know, "You won't get cancer if you eat this," or "Sure homeopathy will cure that dental problem you have," you scare them into thinking that medicine, the standard medicine's going to kill them, and they'll go to your alternative crap medicine, which will, in fact, kill them or prevent them from getting real medicine which will cure them. Or they will sell their property to you on the east coast because they think a commet's going to hit. Or you can just sell a book, and this really, really, really makes me very angry.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. The other point I wanted to make was &mdash; the other reason why it's helpful to talk about these issues, even though the issues themselves are absurd &mdash; it's not just to get to those people on the fence, but it's also just to teach people about science and about logic and critical thinking.<br />
<br />
PP: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And sometimes having a really absurd, extreme example of pseudoscience is a good way to teach about what isn't science.<br />
<br />
PP: Ding, ding, ding. That's exactly right, and, in fact, if you look at the difference between someone like me, a scientist, and someone like Bart Sibrell or these other guys like Richard Hoagland or these other people who are promoting garbage, is that I will point you to the other side. I will say "Go look at their arguments," and then come and read my site and see what the counter-arguments are. Do these experiments for yourself. See how you can figure this out, and "Don't believe me" is what I say. I don't want you to just believe me because I have a degree or that I'm a professional astronomer or I'm just so, so good-looking. It's not anything to do with that. I want you to just look at the facts and make up your mind, and if you do, you will see that I am, in fact, right. And so that's the kind of thing that I put up on my site. When I make a mistake, if the mistake is actually relevant to the argument I'm making, then I will admit it. I will actually say "I made a mistake here. I originally said this. Here is the correct answer." You will never, ever, ever hear a pseudo-scientist claim they made a mistake, ever. That is not in their vocabulary.<br />
<br />
S: So, Phil, you mentioned Hoagland. This is &mdash; is it Richard Hoagland?<br />
<br />
PP: Richard ''C.'' Hoagland, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: Richard C. Hoagland. He is a first-class nut job. I mean, this guy &mdash; he's one of the main proponents of the Face on Mars.<br />
<br />
PP: He is ''the'' proponent of the Face on Mars.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and a lot of other Mars pseudo-science. Have you had any direct run ins with him?<br />
<br />
PP: No, not so much direct, and I wouldn't necessarily call him a nut job. I don't know what his motivations are. I do know that almost everything he's ever said that I've ever heard him say is wrong, and we can get back to that in a minute, because there's a funny story about that. But, yeah, here's a guy who says that this giant rock on Mars is a sculpture of a face. He's very coy about who actually sculpted it, but he says also that there's a city on Mars and there are all these artifacts on Mars. There's a hugh NASA conspiracy going on, and I've got several web pages totally tearing him to shreds. His arguments are just goofy, and it's a classic case of lies, damn lies, and statistics. He manipulates numbers in such a way to make it look like what he's saying is real, but it isn't. It's numerology is what he's doing, and he takes JPEG images, which are compressed images, and blows them up hugely and then says "Look, there's rectangles in them." And it's like, well, "Duh." That's part of the JPEG compression. That's what happens in a computer. So he does garbage like this all the time. He is on {{w|George Noorey}} Coast-to-Coast AM radio show, which is a huge radio show. They have about 10 million listeners every night. Mostly insomniac truck drivers who listen to it with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks. I'm pretty sure that most of the people who listen to this show listen to it for its chuckle factor, that the people who get on there talk about Chupacabra and all this stuff.<br />
<br />
R: Oh yeah, definitely. <br />
<br />
PP: The amount of email I get when I go on, you know, the old adage that 90% of the mail you get is negative. In fact, I get 50% support and 50% calling me a CIA spook. And so the fact that I'm not getting overwhelming negative email from people who listen to Coast-to-Coast shows you that most of their listeners, I think, are listing to this because they think it's funny. And so Hoagland ...<br />
<br />
S: Right, the entertainment value.<br />
<br />
PP: Exactly. And Hoagland's on &mdash; he used to be on fairly often. Now he's on like once a week, shilling his wares and making all these dumb claims, and I'm on every few months. If there's something interesting going on astronomically, I'll go on and debunk it. And George Noory, the host, is just begging me to debate Hoagland on the air, because as one of the biggest science proponents on the show, debating one of the biggest anti-science proponents on the show would make for great radio. On the other hand, you know, I'm not going to stick my hand into a vat of necrotizing fasciitis. I'm just not going to do that. I'm not going to demean myself by debating this guy on the air. The crap he says is &mdash; he says some truly awful things. He's not just saying things that are wrong. He compared a couple of nice guys, a couple of scientists to Nazis. I mean, literally, he basically said they were Nazis.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, he really has reality issues. He believes that NASA is a Nazi conspiracy. That, basically, Nazi scientists eventually found their way to the Soviet Union space program and NASA, and they're trying to carry out this long-term plan to take over the world or something. That's the level that we're dealing with.<br />
<br />
PP: Well, there are two points I'm going to make here. One is that you don't know that he believes that. He says it.<br />
<br />
S: He says that.<br />
<br />
PP: He says things like that, but you don't know if he believes it.<br />
<br />
S: True.<br />
<br />
PP: The second thing is that our space program was started by Nazi scientists. {{w|Wernher von Braun}} ...<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I was going to point that out.<br />
<br />
PP: ... and his engineers worked for &mdash; now these guys worked for Nazis, because the Nazis were the only game in town.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
PP: On the other hand, there was slave labor involved to get the V2 rockets built, and von Braun didn't seem to go to far out of his way to stop this. There's a whole history about this, and I'm not going to judge, because I don't know the history that well. So you can ...<br />
<br />
S: No, he's not just saying that there are Nazi scientists in NASA, which, of course, is true.<br />
<br />
PP: "Were".<br />
<br />
S: He's saying that they're in control of NASA, and that they're using it to pursue their long-term world-dominating ends.<br />
<br />
PP: If there were fascist dictators in charge of NASA, NASA would be doing a much better job.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
PP: One of the problems with NASA is that it's got too many directions it's trying to go in. If there was somebod running it with an iron fist, you know, it would do better. On the other hand, there are disadvantages with this, such as slave labor and the whole exterminating inferior race parts of it. That's kind of the downside of the Nazis. But, you know, the claims this guy makes &mdash; he has all these World Trade Center &mdash; the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. He makes all these claims about that which are just &mdash; they're just stupid, and I debunk those on my website, as well. It's been a long time since we've actually given the name and URL of my website, so I'll say it's on badastronomy, which is [badastronomy.com badastronomy.com], and I am a hopeless shill, in fact.<br />
<br />
S: We will have a link, as always, on our notes page.<br />
<br />
PP: Cool!<br />
<br />
S: Well, speaking of NASA, you blogged recently &mdash; I think it was, in fact, today &mdash; about ...<br />
<br />
PP: You mean two weeks ago.<br />
<br />
S: ... ''Appeal to Congress to refund NASA scientist''<br />
<br />
PP: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: So there's problems with funding at NASA. Why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
PP: No, a problem is when you stub your toe. An epic disaster is when you're five or six billion dollars short in your science budget.<br />
<br />
S: It's that bad?<br />
<br />
PP: What happened here &mdash; this is a complicated situation. But it's explainable. What happened was, NASA was busy throwing away money on the space shuttle and the space station, when &mdash; oh, I'm sorry, did I inject a personal opinion there? And our esteemed leader came in and said "We need to go back to the Moon and then go to Mars", and NASA said "We think this is a great idea," and, in fact, I think this is a great idea. But then what Bush did is he said "Okay, you need to do this, but, yeah, I'm not going to give you any extra money." Or "I'm only going to give you a little bit of extra money." And so NASA really was screwed. It was another in a long line of unfunded mandates from the President, and NASA had to do this. And so they started looking into it, and when the current NASA administrator, Michael Griffin, came in he said &mdash; and this is a quote &mdash; "Not one thin dime will be taken from science to fund the return to the Moon and going on to Mars." And he was telling the absolute truth, because it wasn't one thin dime, it was actually several billion dollars. They had to take money from science, because there was no way they could build a rocket and a program to go back to the Moon without sacrificing to do it. I mean, they have a budget, and there's a fixed amount of money.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PP: The problem is &mdash; not so much &mdash; the problem is that happened in the first place, but NASA made it a lot worse by the way they were doing it. They didn't talk to the science community, or they said to the science community "What's important to you?" And then the science community said "This is. These programs," and then NASA just cut them.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they ignored their recommendations.<br />
<br />
PP: Yeah. Some of the most important projects were just cut, and it was done in kind of a way that was really not a good way. The Dawn Mission, which was a mission to go to two asteroids, was simply just cut, and there was a big European contingent that had built insturments for this thing, and NASA didn't even talk to them first before they canceled it. One mission was canceled, and the principal investigator, the person who had put this mission together, found out about it when somebody told her there was a press conference going on, and the Associate Administrator for NASA said it was canceled. Did not even get a phone call. Got a letter written to her that took like a week to get to her. So she found out through the grapevine, basically, after it was announced. So this was not endearing the NASA administration to scientists, especially after the administration was saying that science wasn't to take a hit. So we scientists are still a little ticked about this, and so I've been blogging about this and saying, you know, NASA can't do this. They're basically cutting off their head to save the rest of the body. It doesn't make any sense, and so &mdash; but they're screwed, because they don't have enough money. So, basically, the only thing we can do now is talk to Congress and say "Look, you've got to fund this. This is not cheap, and the science that you're cutting is destroying the next generation of scientists. You're cutting the research funds that are necessary to generate the next generation of scientists, and if you cut this stuff out, there's just &mdash; you're going to lose a tremendous amount of your brain trust for the next generation.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: So there are committee meetings going on right now with Congress, and I've written letters, the president of the Association of American Universities, who speaks for sixty universities, wrote a letter to Congress saying "Look, you have to find $6 billion to fund this", and that money is around. There are Katrina cleanup funds which are sitting, not being used, over, I think, $2 billion, which is just sitting there and it's never going to get used, because of the reasons it was put aside. They could use that, for example. They could take $9 billion in cash that they lost in Iraq last year and double the amount of funding that NASA needs. So this money's out there. It's just, you know, Congress needs to find it and fund NASA with it.<br />
<br />
S: It's just a matter of priority, right?<br />
<br />
PP: Yeah, and NASA is the smallest of the government agencies when you compare it to the military, health and human services, all these. NASA gets the smallest piece of the budgetary pie. When you talk about a $200 million mission that smacked into Mars or something like that, it sounds like a huge amount of money, and it is compared to NASA's budget. But $200 million is what the military spends in like an hour.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PP: You have to put this stuff in context. NASA gives us so much. Have your ever downloaded a Hubble picture and used it as your wallpaper? Have you ever picked up a picture from Hubble? Have you ever sat back and read about how we're finding planets orbiting other stars, and they're being confirmed by space-based telescopes. Just that knowledge is probably worth the two or three dollars out of your tax money that you spend in a year out of the tens of thousands you give the government, that NASA is getting. And so NASA is absolutely worth it. It needs to be more tightly controlled on how they're spending their money, but NASA is absolutely worth the money it's getting.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, absolutely. It's almost an entire branch of science that is really dependent upon these big projects, these big funds. You can't put telescopes in orbit unless you have a agency like the size of NASA to do it.<br />
<br />
PP: At the moment that's true, and I'm hoping that private industry will be able to pick up some of the slack. I mean, NASA hasn't put anybody in orbit in a few years, and there's supposed to be a shuttle launch next month. We'll see. I don't trust the shuttle anymore. I actually never did. But I certainly wouldn't trust something that blows up two out of every hundred and twenty-five launches. That's not ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PP: Especially given the number of issues involved with launching a shuttle.<br />
<br />
S: Do you think we should end the shuttle program?<br />
<br />
PP: I think it should have ended ten years ago. NASA never put together a project to take over for the shuttle once the shuttle was getting old enough that it should've been replaced. And so now we've got a shuttle which is dangerous and nothing to replace it, and they should have been phasing it out. By the time you lose an orbiter, it's too late to start thinking about what you're going do to replace it, because it takes ten years to build a rocket like that, to design one from scratch, and that's what's going to happen now.<br />
<br />
S: Are they starting to do that now?<br />
<br />
PP: Well, yeah, there's the crew exploration vehicle. This is part of the return to the Moon and going to Mars, and it's going to be like a shuttle on steroids or something like that. It's going to be a superpowerful rocket that can actually take people to the Moon and let them stay there for longer than the astronauts did back in the Apollo day. And eventually put colonies on the Moon, or at least laboratories.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: And the work has started on this. As a matter fact NASA just announced what centers are going to do what &mdash; which research centers &mdash; Kennedy and Johnson and Goddard and these different centers around the country &mdash; what parts of this they're going to be working on. So, it's moving forward, you know. They want to put a man back on the Moon in about ten years, so we'll see.<br />
<br />
S: You are proponent of manned space missions?<br />
<br />
PP: Uh, yes. But I will qualify that and say that I think it's important that we explore with people, because that is our destiny. Our destiny is to set foot again on the Moon, to go to Mars, and to eventually colonize the galaxy. I think this is a fine idea. One asteroid impact can wipe out our entire race. Larry Niven, the science fiction author, said "The reason there are no dinosaurs walking around today is because they didn't have a space program. If they had had a space program, they could have blown up the asteroid," right? We can actually totally prevent a global disaster. It's the only global disaster you can prevent. You can't prevent earthquakes; you can't prevent hurricanes; but an asteroid impact you can prevent if you have rockets. You can blow up the asteroids, one, and two, you can put colonies on other planets, and, therefore, preserve the human race. And so I think this is a good idea. I think we've wasted the past ten years just circling the Earth. We should've been pushing a lot harder for better technology and better rockets to get to the Moon. Well, we're finally doing it, and science is getting screwed in the process, unless Congress steps up to the plate. So, you know, when you say I'm for a manned program, yes, I'm for it, if it's funded and done correctly. The problem is NASA's &mdash; you know, there's a lot of money in NASA, and politicians love to get their fingers in the pie, and the space shuttle got distributed over many states, and senators got in on it, and Congress got in on it, and the next thing you know you've got an orbiter which does not do what it was meant to do. And the space station's the same way.<br />
<br />
E: What about other governments and countries of the Earth participating jointly in efforts to explore space? Is that an option?<br />
<br />
PP: Yeah, well, India's got a probe. They're building right now to go to the Moon. China wants to go to the Moon. Russia's going back; they just announced they're going to send a very ambitious probe to the Moon. Partnering with them is not a bad idea, but you have to be really careful, because we partnered with Russia on the space station, and then Russia couldn't deliver on its components. And so the space station wound up costing us even more money than the outrageous amount of money is was already costing. So you've got to be careful when you partner with other countries. On the other hand, you know, China wants to put a man on the Moon. That's pretty good impetus to get us to go again.<br />
<br />
S: Now, just to get back to manned missions again. The reason why I bring that up is we had Bob Parks on our show about six months ago.<br />
<br />
PP: Yeah, I know Bob.<br />
<br />
S: You know him, and his point is that we should be putting our money into robotic missions, and that is just the extra expense of keeping people alive in space is not worth it, and that we can have a virtual presence on these worlds, and that's the way to go.<br />
<br />
PP: Bob Park is a very smart guy, but Bob is also dead wrong on this issue. First of all, it's not a waste of money to put men in space. It may be a waste to do it the way NASA is currently doing it with the space station and the shuttle, but putting people back on the Moon is not a waste. There are so many reasons to do it. Like I said, to preserve the human race for one. Another one is just the sheer inspiration of it. Look, I worked with Hubble for ten years. You know, I know what these images do to people, how gorgeous they are. I know how inspiring these Cassini images from Saturn have been. This is high art. This stuff is gorgeous, and it is inspirational to see these rovers on Mars. It is inspirational to do all this stuff, but that stuff is a drop in the bucket compared to seeing somebody walking around on the Moon again. There was nothing like that when we did it back in 1969, and to do it again would inspire an entire new generation of engineers and scientists and explorers, and Bob says we don't have enough money to do this. That's just wrong. We do have enough money to do this. The robotic probes &mdash; you could double the robotic probe budget, and it would allow you to do a tremendous amount of things, and it would still be a fraction of what it would cost to put a man in space. But it would still only be a drop in the bucket of the amount of money we could spend on this. We could double NASA's budget with the amount of money that's wasted by Congress every year on other things, and it's just not &mdash; I don't think it's that big of a price to pay. Now, of course, it's my own pet project. I know we have people starving. I know that we have other problems in this world. We're a fairly rich nation. We have a lot of money. If we spend this money wisely, we could actually fund public school systems. We could rebuild our roads. We could have a universal health care, and we could have people on the Moon. The money is out there, so I don't buy into this either/or argument: either robots or man. I don't buy into the either/or argument of either we fund social programs or we fund NASA. That's a garbage argument. It's a false dichotomy. We can do both.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I'm definitely a proponent of having people in space. What do you think about &mdash; recently I've been reading about a technical problem in that shielding astronauts from radiation in space is a real limitation. What do you think about that?<br />
<br />
PP: Everything about going to Mars, technically, can be done. We can recycle air; we can recycle water. It's not easy, you know, but you just have to build a super-huge ship. You could do that if you could just launch piece after piece after piece in orbit and assemble it in orbit. That's a technical problem. There's a physics problem, and that is that the Sun gives off the solar wind, which is a stream of charged particles, neutral particles as well, but it's electrons, protons, neutrons, and these fast protons, when they smack into your DNA, can damage it, and if the Sun happens to belch and give off what's called a coronal mass ejection, which is a tremendous explosion of this stuff, a solar flare, anything else like this, the amount of charged particles that would pass through the human body would give you a lethal dose of radiation.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
PP: In fact, the astronauts on the Moon, had there been a solar flare while they were on the Moon, it would have killed them. I mean dead, and there were contingency plans of what NASA was going to do. Nixon even had a letter written up about what if the astronauts were left on the Moon to die. This is true, and so this is a real problem, especially on a long trip. The trip to the Moon only took a week or so to go there, stay there, and come back. A trip to Mars is six months almost minimum, and they're going to be out in space, and this is dangerous, so how do you shield them? And it's not really well-understood how you can shield them. Water is an excellent radiation shield, but it's very heavy, and it doesn't compress, and so to carry 20 cubic meters of water &mdash; that weighs 20 tons. That's a lot. I've not heard of a good solution yet. Now, astronauts on the Moon, when we build colonies there, there are a lot of ways around it. You can build underground, for example.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
PP: You can dig, which is actually very difficult to do on the Moon. That's the regolith, the dust on the Moon is very difficult to dig in. But you could build underground, and if you go down more than a couple of meters, that'll help. You could build your domes on the surface of the Moon and then cover them with rubble. There are things like that you can do. So that's preventable, but going to Mars, that's tough news. I don't know how they are going to do it.<br />
<br />
S: Well, Phil, we are out of time. We greatly appreciate your being on the show. It was really fun talking to you.<br />
<br />
PP: Thanks. I had a lot of fun, too.<br />
<br />
S: So keep up the bad astronomy.<br />
<br />
PP: Oh, I don't have to keep it up. It's out there on it's own. I'm just, you know, one guy trying to stop an avalanche here.<br />
<br />
R: Fight the good fight.<br />
<br />
PP: It's the best any of us can do. Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me on.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Phil.<br />
<br />
S: Our pleasure. Take care.<br />
<br />
PP: Bye, bye.<br />
<br />
S: All right. That was a fun time with Phil Plait. He is a good guy. Good skeptic.<br />
<br />
R: Phil's a blast.<br />
<br />
E: On the right side of the issues. That's for sure.<br />
<br />
S: Got to check out his bad astronomy website. He's got a lot of interesting articles on there. Good blog.<br />
<br />
P: Would you say the interview suffered due to my absence?<br />
<br />
S: Always.<br />
<br />
P: Thank you. Very good. Good host. Excellent host.<br />
<br />
S: We have time for Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
''(intro)''<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:03:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts. Two are genuine, one is fictitious, and I challenge my panel of esteemed skeptics to figure out which one is fake. Again, two are real; one is fake. Ready?<br />
<br />
P: The last time I got one of these right was 1912.<br />
<br />
R: Approximately, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: You've got to change your tactics, or something.<br />
<br />
R: Maybe your tactic should be going with me, because I always win. Go on.<br />
<br />
S: All right. I'm going to ask Perry first. Here we go. Number one: this week military surgeons are testing a system for remote mobile robotic tele-surgery. Item number two: a new study suggests that phantom limb pain is psychosomatic. Item number three: drinking caffeine makes us more susceptible to persuasion, according to a new study. So those are: one is robotic surgery, two is phantom limb pain is psychosomatic, and three is caffeine makes us susceptible to persuation.<br />
<br />
P: I need to hear one again, please.<br />
<br />
S: This week military surgeons are testing a system for remote mobile robotic tele-surgery.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: Why don't you go first, Perry?<br />
<br />
P: That one sounds reasonable. Psychosomatic limbs: okay, and what was the third one?<br />
<br />
S: Drinking caffeine makes us more susceptible to persuasion.<br />
<br />
P: Uh, let's see &mdash; drinking caffeine is supposed to make you hyper. That one sounds reasonable. And the other one, you know, that phantom limb, that's a cross-wire in the brain, misfiring in the head, isn't it? So that would not be psychosomatic, right? Doctor?<br />
<br />
S: You're asking me?<br />
<br />
P: If that's accurate, it wouldn't be psychosomatic if it's cross wires in the head, right?<br />
<br />
S: You want the definition of psychosomatic?<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: Psychosomatic means that somatic, or a symptom that you have in your body, but the ultimate source of it is your psychology.<br />
<br />
P: Okay, so I think that one is wrong. I think that one's fake.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, Evan.<br />
<br />
E: I agree with Perry. I think number two is wrong. Number one: surgeons doing mobile robotic tele-surgery. I seem to recall seeing that, reading that, discussing it. One of the companies I work with in my industry in television production, they do live webcasting of surgical procedures on the Internet, and I believe that they've touched base on this in some of their recent shows that they've done. So I'll say that one is true. And, then, it's just really a matter of guessing, I think, between the last two. I think just the caffeine seems just more plausible to me.<br />
<br />
S: Alrighty. Bob?<br />
<br />
B: The remote tele-surgery, yeah, that's totally plausible. I've been reading about it for years. They're getting more and more advanced with it, and I remember five or six years ago bringing this up to you, Steve, and you were skeptical about it, and that just makes total sense to me, and it seems inevitable. The caffeine and persuasion, yes. I'll just say that that is true, and the phantom limb pain being psychosomatic is false, I believe. I didn't read something specific about that. I did read something about phantom limb pain, though, that said that.it is totally explainable by the way the nerves operate and stuff, so that one is false.<br />
<br />
S: All right, so we are three for three. Three people all believe that number two is fake. Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Uh, yeah, me too, actually. I read the other two articles, I think.<br />
<br />
S: That makes it unanimous.<br />
<br />
E: Cheater.<br />
<br />
R: It's not cheating. It's being educated.<br />
<br />
E: How dare you learn on your own time. I mean ...<br />
<br />
R: Sorry.<br />
<br />
S: So you all agree that the phantom limb pain being psychosomatic is fake.<br />
<br />
P: It better be.<br />
<br />
S: So let's go to number one first. Number one is true. This week military surgeons are testing a system for remote mobile &mdash; this is his military, so the whole point is that so in the field they can send a robot, I guess, somewhere.<br />
<br />
P: That's the only different thing about it is that it's mobile, right?<br />
<br />
S: It's mobile, right. That's partly why I included that, because it would make it seem a little bit more extreme, but that is, in fact, true. They're testing it on it on a simulated patient. They're not yet at the point where they're testing it on real patients.<br />
<br />
P: Good. That's good.<br />
<br />
S: And number three is correct. Drinking caffeine makes us more susceptible to persuasions. Subjects in the study who had &mdash; they gave them &mdash; the group and the control group a drink, one group had caffeine and the control group didn't, and they couldn't tell who had caffein and who didn't. The group who had caffeine &mdash; their opinions were more likely to be changed by someone trying to persuade them of something, and the change of opinion was actually fairly persistent. So it didn't just go away again after the caffeine wore off. So caffeine has some effect on our brain that makes us more susceptible to persuasion. Number two is fake. So you guys all got it right.<br />
<br />
P: Yaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy.<br />
<br />
E: You can take a homeopathic remedy to cure number three of deluded caffeine, and you'll no longer become susceptible to the persuasion.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, if you take caffeine in homeopathic doses?<br />
<br />
E: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: Actually, you can buy that. That's their sleep aid is homeopathic doses of caffeine.<br />
<br />
E: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: So phantom limb pain &mdash; actually, there was a recent study that showed that the localization of phantom limb pain is actually not even in the brain. It's in the nerves themselves. So the damaged nerves. So Bob actually mentiond that. So Bob was correct.<br />
<br />
P: It's at the stump.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's coming from the limb itself. It's coming from the nerves that are left behind. They're producing the abnormal signals that are producing the phantom limb pain.<br />
<br />
P: 'kay.<br />
<br />
S: It's not a brain phenomena.<br />
<br />
P: Cool.<br />
<br />
S: So I just reversed it to make it fake.<br />
<br />
P: We got it right!<br />
<br />
S: You guys all did well.<br />
<br />
P: The first one I got right.<br />
<br />
S: So, Perry, you broke your pattern.<br />
<br />
P: I'd like to thank Luna for the psychological uplift. My fan letter in the forums.<br />
<br />
R: Your one fan.<br />
<br />
P: Thank you. Thank you very much. All right.<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:10:11)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's our show for this week, guys. Thanks again for joining me.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, and speaking of, we should mention before we sign off that people should definitely continue to sign up to the forum because it's growing every day.<br />
<br />
S: Yes. It is. It's growing. We're on there.<br />
<br />
R: Perry could use a few more fans.<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: So we'll see you on the forums, and until next week this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_46&diff=10037SGU Episode 462015-08-14T19:40:01Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
|transcriber = Jim Gibson<br />
|date = 2015-08-14<br />
}}<br />
{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 46<br />
|episodeDate = 7<sup>th</sup> June 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:phil_shuttle.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|guest1 = PP: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Plait Phil Plait]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2006-06-07.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=35.0<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== The World Survives June 6th, 2006 <small>(00:50)</small>===<br />
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2158015,00.html Times Online] ''(Link expired)''<br />
* NBC News: [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/13134489/ 6/6/06: The Date is Near]<br />
<br />
=== Skepchick infiltrates Christian Scientists <small>(5:00)</small>===<br />
* Skepchick: [http://skepchick.org/2006/06/rebecca-infiltrates-enemy-territory/ Rebecca Infiltrates Enemy Territory]<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(11:48)</small> ==<br />
=== Altruism and Evolution ===<br />
<blockquote>Great show. Absolutely one of my favorite podcasts! My wife eagerly awaits my lobbing the "science or fiction" her way after each show.<br/><br />
<br/><br />
Speaking of the fact or fiction segment, I have a question about the altruism gene discovery as studied in the multicellular organism Volvox. You defined altrusim as "you do something which sacrifices your own Darwinian fitness in order for your relatives to survive." I was viewing this gene as somehow increasing fitness, such as by increasing the overall percentage of like genes passed on to future generations since the individuals in a simple multicellular organism are highly related. So while you don't reproduce, your overall fitness is still higher than had you "gone it alone." Otherwise the altruism gene would be selected against, right? An analogous, though far more complex, situation might be the "altruism" of non reproducing individuals in social insect species.<br/><br />
<br/><br />
Please set me straight if I'm looking at this incorrectly.<br/><br />
<br/><br />
Thanks!<br/><br />
Marty Steitz<br/><br />
Minnesota, US</blockquote><br />
<br />
=== Reply to 9/11 Hoax <small>(14:01)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== More on 9/11 <small>(16:28)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Interview with Phil Plait <small>(24:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://www.badastronomy.com Bad Astronomy]<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:03:21)</small> ==<br />
Question #1 This week military surgeons are testing a system for remote mobile robotic "telesurgery."<br />
Question #2 New study suggests that phantom limb pain is psychosomatic.<br />
Question #3 Drinking caffeine makes us more susceptible to persuasion. <br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:10:11)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=10036Template:SGU episode list2015-08-14T18:21:38Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #45 as done, #46 as in-progress.</p>
<hr />
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<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
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Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
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Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2014|2014]], [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2015"><big>'''2015'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 526]], Aug 8 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 525]], Aug 1 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 524]], Jul 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 523]], Jul 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 522]], Jul 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 521]], Jul 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 520]], Jun 27 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 519]], Jun 20 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 518]], Jun 13 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 517]], Jun 6 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 516]], May 30 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 10-Hour Show]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"| <span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_45&diff=10035SGU Episode 452015-08-14T18:19:16Z<p>Jim Gibson: Complete transcription.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
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|}}<br />
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{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 45<br />
|episodeDate = May 31<sup>st</sup> 2006 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Sept11WTC.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2006-05-31.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, May 31, 2006. This is your host, Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society, and joining me this week are the skeptical rogues Perry DeAngelis, ...<br />
<br />
P: Right!<br />
<br />
S: ... Jay Novella, ...<br />
<br />
J: Hey, what's up guys?<br />
<br />
S: ... Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hey, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Bob Novella.<br />
<br />
B: Good evening.<br />
<br />
S: Perry, welcome back from Alaska.<br />
<br />
P: Yes, I'm back now.<br />
<br />
R: Perry, you're brimming with energy.<br />
<br />
P: Ha, ha.<br />
<br />
S: How was your trip?<br />
<br />
P: It was fine. I kept a lookout for any aroma therapy salesmen or things that accosted Bob on his trip, but there were none such on my boat.<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
P: The median age for an Alaska trip is considerably higher than a Caribbean trip.<br />
<br />
J: So there were some hot babes there, huh?<br />
<br />
P: With walkers.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Bob has been to both, so you can probably do the comparison, Bob, but I certainly noticed it was considerably more elderly crowd. So, Bob, you went to the Caribbean and to Alaska.<br />
<br />
B: Yes.<br />
<br />
P: Do you remember there being crazy salespeople on your Alaska cruise also?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah. They had a bunch of that baloney on both cruises. So I'm kind of surprised you didn't.<br />
<br />
P: No, I really did not. A couple of cooking demonstrations, you know.<br />
<br />
J: Perry, maybe they saw you coming?<br />
<br />
P: Dance lessons, ...<br />
<br />
J: And they were like "This guy is &mdash; you can't bullshit this guy."<br />
<br />
P: I went to a movie trivia game, you know, bingo.<br />
<br />
S: But is was a pseudoscience-free trip.<br />
<br />
R: Bingo?!<br />
<br />
J: Well, that's good.<br />
<br />
R: You went to Alaska to play bingo?<br />
<br />
B: Party animal!<br />
<br />
P: I did indeed. I almost won, too, but not quite.<br />
<br />
R: Wow!<br />
<br />
J: That sounds like the shittiest vacation I've ever heard of in my life.<br />
<br />
P: It was awesome.<br />
<br />
R: "I went to Alaska and almost won at bingo."<br />
<br />
P: It was awesome.<br />
<br />
J: "Ain't that right, granny?"<br />
<br />
P: I had a very good time.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== New Skeptics Guide Forum <small>(2:11)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: Now in the new this week, the first is item is the fact that the Skeptics' Guide Forum is now open. After a long delay, we finally have our message board online. People are already signing up and sending messages, and a lively discussion has begun. So just go to our homepage ([http://theskepticsguide.org/ theskipticsguide.org]), and there's a link to the message board from there. Sign up and start taking part in the discussion.<br />
<br />
R: Or else!<br />
<br />
=== New 9/11 Footage <small>(2:39)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: The second news item is from a couple weeks ago. The Pentagon has made officially public some new 9/11 footage of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon.<br />
<br />
P: Fabricated!<br />
<br />
S: Now this footage &mdash; I mean it's a little anticlimactic in that this footage was already &mdash; some frames were already released, and this footage was already leaked on the Internet. So it had already made its rounds among the conspiracy theorists. So it really hasn't changed the landscape of the 9/11 conspiracy nuts, but it does show from, I believe, the parking lot, one wall of the Pentagon and really on the far right side of the camera-view you can see just a blur, just a streak come in from the outside, and then the explosion, which is huge.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, what I thought was a little odd &mdash; I'm not going to bring up the big conspiracy theory crap &mdash; but it does seem a little odd to me that that plane looked to be like within 10 feet of the ground, coming in very horizontally.<br />
<br />
S: It actually hit the ground before it hit the Pentagon. It came in very low. I guess the pilot was aiming for the base of the Pentagon.<br />
<br />
P: Don't forget the pilots barely knew how to fly planes.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. And they didn't know how to land, because they didn't bother.<br />
<br />
J: How come the grass in front of the Pentagon wasn't disrupted then.<br />
<br />
S: Well sure it was.<br />
<br />
R: It was.<br />
<br />
B: It hit. I'm sure it was.<br />
<br />
J: I didn't see pictures of that.<br />
<br />
R: You can see pictures of that all over the Internet.<br />
<br />
P: Who is this guy, huh? How did you sneak in here?<br />
<br />
R: I don't know. If you go to popularmechanics.com, they have a pretty thorough debunking of all of those myths, and they include a picture of the Pentagon that shows damage to the the front of it. It's pretty obvious.<br />
<br />
P: What are you alleging, Jay?<br />
<br />
J: I'm not saying anything. I'm telling you from the pictures that I've seen out, I don't know, I am not the master of all things 9/11, but ...<br />
<br />
R: If you want to see a picture of it, you just need to look for the picture of it.<br />
<br />
J: Don't get snappy with me.<br />
<br />
R: No, I'm going to get snappy with you when you're being so completely un-skeptical about something. To say that it's not there because I didn't see a picture of it?<br />
<br />
J: I am being totally skeptical.<br />
<br />
R: What kind of response is that? "I don't see a picture of it, so ..."<br />
<br />
P: Describe the logic underlying that conclusion, please.<br />
<br />
J: Look, I never claimed that I am a expert at these things. I certainly believe that ...<br />
<br />
R: You know what? I'b never seen a picture of your mother, so I guess she doesn't exist.<br />
<br />
J: Don't you dare bring my mother into this. Look, all I'm saying is that of all the pictures I've seen, all the footage I've seen taken, I've never seen what I would expect to have happened to the ground if an airliner hit it.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's a good point in that: what is your expectation based on?<br />
<br />
B: Right, exactly.<br />
<br />
S: And the point is, and I think that the conspiracy theorists make this huge mistake, is they actually have the arrogance to think that they have any idea what would happen in such an unprecedented and unusual event as a passenger jet loaded with fuel crashing into one of the biggest, most heavily reinforced buildings in the world. This is literally an unprecedented crash, a very high-energy, chaotic event, and ...<br />
<br />
B: The same thing with the twin towers, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: ... nobody knows what is supposed to happen.<br />
<br />
B: It's the same thing with twin towers. I've listened to many mechanical engineers who said that they were watching the twin towers, and they were saying that they're not going to go down. They're just built too strong, and they were in shock when they went down.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: It's just a completely chaotic event and unpredictable.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. And there's no prior history really to base it on.<br />
<br />
B: Right, exactly.<br />
<br />
S: It was a unique event.<br />
<br />
B: That's it.<br />
<br />
S: And what the conspiracy theorists do, and I do think the scientific sites that are reviewing the specific claims of the conspiracy theorists &mdash; I think Rebecca is right, the Popular Mechanics article, which we'll have on our notes page, was the best one that I found. They really went point by point and took the most common claims of the conspiracy theorists. But what they basically do is make unwarranted assumptions about what should have happened during these crashes and say "Well why is this the case? Why is that the case? Why isn't there this? Why isn't there that," and they're basically just mystery-mongering and trying to somehow roll that into a conspiracy. For example, many of the sites notice that the windows next to the location where the plane hit the Pentagon were not shattered. And they just throw that: "Why weren't those windows shattered?", as if that is supposed to be like this big mystery that should make us question the basic events of that day. Well, they didn't shatter because they were blast windows.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, we're talking about the Pentagon.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they were designed not to explose. They're blast windows!<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but I haven't seen any pictures of these blast windows. I don't know if they exist.<br />
<br />
B: Ha, ha.<br />
<br />
R: You're so lucky we're not in the same room, because I would punch you in the face, I swear to God.<br />
<br />
B: Did you guys know that the Pentagon &mdash; the prior years to 9/11 &mdash; was they went through like a multimillion dollar job of reinforcing ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: ... of a lot of the building and structure, and a lot of more people would have died and a lot of the building would've collapsed, or more than did collapse, if it wasn't for that. It's like they just finished, too, right before the plane hit.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, of course, that's one of the coincidences that the conspiracy theorists point to ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... and say the jet hit the one side of the Pentagon that had just been renovated and reinforced. Like, "What are the odds?" Twenty per cent?<br />
<br />
J: One in five?<br />
<br />
B: Pentagon!<br />
<br />
R: Actually, they're a hundred percent. The odds were a hundred percent, because it did.<br />
<br />
S: Because is happened, right?<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So it must have been a hundred percent.<br />
<br />
R: The conspiracy theorists also say that &mdash; they just make some stuff up. They don't just ...<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ... leap to conclusions. They just say things like "A Boeing 757 was never found in the Pentagon wreckage." Yes there was.<br />
<br />
S: There was.<br />
<br />
R: And we have plenty of people who say that there was, and if you're going to say that all of these people are somehow conspiring together, I mean, you've got a conspiracy theory that just the scale of it is just incomprehensible.<br />
<br />
S: That's right, and that's why these grand conspiracy theories, as I say, collapse under their own weight, because every time you come up with a problem with a conspiracy, it means that more people had to be involved in the cover-up, and the conspiracies grows and grows and grows and grows. All these people who were involved with the cleanup at the Pentagon, people who were picking body parts with American Airlines uniforms on them off the ground ...<br />
<br />
J: Yeah but they killed all those people.<br />
<br />
S: But they accounted for all of the people except, I think, for one passenger on that plane.<br />
<br />
J: They really did? They found physical material for everybody?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they found all the body parts of all the people on that plane except for one person I think they couldn't find.<br />
<br />
P: Is there a basic alternate hypothesis? What do they think: it was missiles?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, the missile is the most common one I hear.<br />
<br />
B: Or a bomb.<br />
<br />
S: I heard one person advocate a truck with explosives in it, but too many people heard and saw something in the air crashing into the building.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Most people say it was a jetliner. Some people did not say that.<br />
<br />
R: I've also heard military cargo jet as opposed to passenger plane.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, either some kind of either another kind of aircraft or missile is the most common thing that I've heard.<br />
<br />
B: I tell you though, guys, if I truly believed that my country was capable of doing that, I'd be moving to Sweden.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
B: Come on, would you even live here if your country is capable of doing something like that? Come on!<br />
<br />
J: Well, Bob, honestly, and please don't take me as being the big conspiracy theorist, but governments do really screwed-up things to get their agendas done. I'm not saying that this was an example of that, but Bob, yeah! Governments kill people; governments bribe other countries and blackmail people and do &mdash; you know, 007!<br />
<br />
R: That's the same kind of thinking that leads to, say, homeopathy getting accepted, because doctors sometimes do messed up stuff, because big pharmaceutical companies are after the almighty dollar and do screwed up stuff, so ...<br />
<br />
J: But Rebecca, it's true!<br />
<br />
R: ... they assume therefore they're capable ...<br />
<br />
J: You can't argue that ...<br />
<br />
R: No, I'm saying it is true, and that's what leads to ...<br />
<br />
J: Oh, okay.<br />
<br />
R: ... people to believe these grand, just completely stupid conspiracies that make no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean, it becomes a logical fallacy in that, yeah, sure, governments sometimes are deceitful. Sometimes they do bad things. There are coverups, but you have to think &mdash; it depends. If you're living in 1960s Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain, there's probably almost nothing that the Soviet Union was not capable of pulling off and hiding from the public at large. They didn't have a free press. They had a very well-run and efficient spook force in their country. But we live in an open society with a free press, and it's traditionally very difficult for politicians to hide massive conspiracies from the American public. It's basically just not possible.<br />
<br />
P: I believe the former president couldn't even keep his BJs in the oval office secret.<br />
<br />
J: There's no way. There's no way that our current administration could've artfully pulled this off.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: No, and the risk is just far &mdash; just considering risk alone, it's far too great to even risk getting caught. Even if you could somehow justify it in some twisted logic, just the risk alone is a deal killer.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Hello! Okay, we get found out, then that means, okay, no Republicans get elected for a half a century ...<br />
<br />
J: Or more.<br />
<br />
B: ... because of what I did. Come on! Who would risk that.<br />
<br />
S: It's absurd. It's absolutely absurd.<br />
<br />
B: It's beyond absurd; beyond absurb.<br />
<br />
S: And you're right, Bob. They have to invest in the conspirators' absolute evil genius that they could pull something like this off, you know, the timing of &mdash; if you look &mdash; like I saw Spare Change today &mdash; this is one of the conspiracy videos &mdash; and they say &mdash; they show the slow-motion video of one of the planes crashing into one of the twin towers, and they say "Look at this frame. There's a flash of light on the twin tower, but it's a little bit in front of the nose of the plane. Therefore, it wasn't the plane hitting the tower; it was a missile that they shot right at the exact moment that the plane was just about to crash into the twin tower.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, okay.<br />
<br />
S: And they managed to switch the plane and deceive all the passengers, and they had the missile on the plane somehow, so it was a military operation. They invest absolutely supernatural genius and capability and power in the conspirators in order to be able to pull off the kind of thing that they believe that they pulled off. It's really incredible.<br />
<br />
J: You know, it's kind of like the OJ trial, and they were trying to say that there was a conspiracy. The LA Police Force had a grand conspiracy to frame him, and simultaneously the LA Police Force was being ridiculed for how ridiculous and stupid they were, ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: ... and all the missteps that they took. You can't have it both ways.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
P: Apparently you can with that jury, but, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Conspiracy theorists do want to have both ways. They are evil geniuses, but they're absurdly stupid in certain ways, and, of course, all the ways that the conspirators figure them out, right, because they're even smarter than the genius conspirators, because they can see through the veil of darkness that they've spread.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, this would be a really good topic to discuss in detail on our bulletin board.<br />
<br />
S: That's true. Well, I'm sure we'll start to get some posts about it. It's an interesting topic, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon. Another thing about the conspiracy theories is no matter what evidence comes to light &mdash; any evidence that's too inconvenient was just planted by the evil geniuses or was manufactured, and any evidence that's missing was covered up and hushed up by the government. So you basically end up with a closed belief system that can't be disproved.<br />
<br />
J: Well whoever Bush put on the evil genius tip to come up with 9/11, I'd love for him to have that guy spend some time on our economy now.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. where are these evil geniuses when you need them?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
=== UK Docs fight against Alt Med <small>(15:25)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: Well, let's move on. Rebecca, you had mentioned the homeopathy, and that sort of leads into our next news item. Several doctors in the United Kingdom, our friends across the pond &mdash; I think it was 13 physicians &mdash; wrote an open letter to people involved with the National Health Service, basically protesting the use of alternative and complementary medicine in the national health service, and they were specifically protesting two initiatives. One was an NHS policy in terms of promoting the use of homeopathy. Another one was a commission, which was supported by the Prince, who is very fond of alternative medicine &mdash; I think this was the Smallwood report, which basically concluded that broadening access to alternative health modalities would reap benefits in the UK.<br />
<br />
J: Now we know for certain that Prince Charles is an idiot or a drunk, right?<br />
<br />
S: As if we didn't know it before.<br />
<br />
J: ''(English accent)'' "A little bit of the bubbly, eh governor?" Come on, Charlie. Get your head out of your ass. Guys, let me read one quote from the link that Steve sent to me earlier that Prince Charles said, right? "Many of today's complementary therapies are rooted in ancient traditions that intuitively understood the need to maintain balance and harmony with our minds, bodies, and the natural world." Why do people believe that ancient people were so tuned in to the Earth and to harmony and to balance in our minds. Where did all this wisdom go in the past few hundred or thousand years?<br />
<br />
S: It was all suppressed by our evil modern Western civilization.<br />
<br />
P: It's another selling point for their concoctions.<br />
<br />
R: I think that it's a grand scale version of "man, things were so much better when I was a kid back in the 80s."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah,<br />
<br />
R: And you keep going back, and it's like "well, thousands of years ago, things were awesome." I mean, sure we were dying when we were like 28, but ...<br />
<br />
P: Life was short, brutish, and nasty, you know, but ...<br />
<br />
R: It was short but so sweet.<br />
<br />
J: I'm sure the data exists. Do you know of the actual age of death and the average age of death say 100, 200, 300 years ago?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it basically simmered along at around 35 to 40.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but is that mean, median, or mode? You have to specify. Shouldn't you specify that?<br />
<br />
S: That's life expectancy, which is an average. That's a mean. Lifespan hasn't really changed that much. Probably Neanderthals occasionally would live to be 70 or 80 or older, but on average they were living to about 40, and that goes back even to prehistory. If we, in fact, look at fossil pre-humans or humans, Homo Sapiens, the average age is about 40 when they died. And the same was true about a 150 years ago, and then, basically, when Western medicine became scientific, then the life expectancy began a steady climb, and right now is somewhere between 75 and 80, depending on the country. So it's basically doubled in the last 150 years.<br />
<br />
R: I wonder if those two things had anything to do with each other.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can always say that there's correlation without causation, but the correlation holds up pretty much everywhere. Whenever you introduce Western medicine into a third-world country, their life expectancy starts rising.<br />
<br />
J: So you take someone like Prince Charles.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: Probably the opportunity for him to go to school, right? He probably went to some of the best schools, I'm just assuming, right? Someone in his position. Very worldly type of a person. The guy's probably traveled all over the world, and he is completely stuck in the mire of pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: That's very depressing to me.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but why wouldn't he be? In fact, a college-level education, if anything, increases the chance that you'll be favorably predisposed to alternative medicine. You really need to get to the point where you have some kind of advanced training in science, or you need a generally skeptical outlook before you realize that this is all bunk.<br />
<br />
B: Or you need to listen to this podcast.<br />
<br />
S: That would go under the general skeptical outlook.<br />
<br />
P: The skeptics' guide through this universe, appropriately.<br />
<br />
R: Look who you are really talking. It's Prince Charles. The only reason why anybody listens to what he says is because he had the good fortune to fall out of the right womb. I mean ...<br />
<br />
P: He has the proper inbreeding.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, my point is it's just sad someone in his position &mdash; you just would expect him to be more educated. The guy's leading a life of what? What does he do with his time?<br />
<br />
R: Quiet desperation?<br />
<br />
S: Of privilege, but not necessarily intellect. You also have to understand that just historically homeopathy has been very popular with the royal family and is much more popular and influential in Europe in general and Great Britain in particular than it is in the United States. We have our pseudoscientices like chiropractic that are much, much more popular over here, but homeopathy really is a European pseudoscience. We have a very, very small amount of it over here compared with to what they have.<br />
<br />
J: I hate homeopathy.<br />
<br />
S: Homeopathy is just about the worst alternative medicine pseudoscience around. It's the most demonstrably absurd of the bunch, and we've talked about it before on this podcast, but I don't know that we really have gotten into the nitty-gritty of how absolutely absurd it is. So let's talk about a few things about homeopathy. Homeopathy was invented a couple of hundred years ago by this guy named {{w|Samuel_Hahnemann|Hahnemann}}. So basically before scientific medicine. In fact, at that time, doing nothing was better than going to a hospital and getting whatever the standard of care was at that time. Basically, if you went into a hospital you were going to get poisoned and diseased. At that time any alternative was probably a good thing. But when Hanemann came up with homeopathy, he basically made it up out of whole cloth based upon just a couple of anecdotal observations, and then he spun that into an entire belief system. It wasn't a science. It was never tested in any empirical way. It's really a philosophy-based alternative modality. And basically he had his three "laws". They're not really scientific laws; they're just sort of really just magical laws. The first is the law of similar, that like cures like. And, again, there's nothing scientific about that. This is pure witchcraft and magical thinking.<br />
<br />
P: It's like the {{w|humorism|four humors}}. It's nonsense.<br />
<br />
S: It's worse than the four humors. The four humors at least were stuff that was in the body, like blood.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: So he, bascially, says that if an onion makes your eyes water, then some homeopathic extract of onion can cure diseases which make your eyes water. That's magical thinking. There's no basis to reality that would make that happen, that would make something which causes your symptoms to also relieve them in "tiny doses."<br />
<br />
S: Well, Steve, don't they call that process "proving," don't they, where they actually try to determine "If I give you this little tiny, dilute solution of whatever and see what it does to you, then that's what can be used to cure it."<br />
<br />
S: They give you an actual dose of something and see what symptoms you get.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. The beauty of it is they usually tell you exactly what sort of symptons you're supposed to get first, so that way you what to look for.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
B: Can't you just see them standing there with their little notepad and saying, "Okay, he's scratching his nose. Okay, 'itching.' Itching is one thing."<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, they really do. They take everything.<br />
<br />
B: "Oh, and he's got gas! He's got gas."<br />
<br />
R: Everything that happens to them they record.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, isn't homeopathy one of those things that could very easily be tested? Why don't they, you know ...<br />
<br />
S: It has been tested, and it doesn't work. It's been tested many, many times. It doesn't work.<br />
<br />
J: Did you know that &mdash; I don't know if this is still true &mdash; but I think I remember reading that homeopathy is the only category of products that are legally marketable as drugs that are like ...<br />
<br />
S: It got grandfathered by the FDA in the 1940s. It was political. Homeopathy was much more popular in our country back then.<br />
<br />
P: So, Steve, you said there were three. The first was a law of similars.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so the second law is the law of infinitesimal's.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, this is the best.<br />
<br />
S: This a good one, right. I love how Randi summarized this in a lecture once. He said "So the first law says if you want to cure a symptom, you take something which causes those symptoms, and the second law is you don't do that."<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
B: Awesome!<br />
<br />
S: The second law is that you dilute it to such a degree that there's nothing left, so what you're actually taking is ''nothing''. Now, of course, this is partly because Hahnemann lived before Avogadro, right? I mean he lived before we knew that you couldn't just dilute something infinitely, that stuff is made of molecules, and once you get down to one molecule, you can't dilute beyond that.<br />
<br />
R: Wouldn't his common sense have told him? I don't think Avogadro really needed to say "Hey, no, if you dilute that enough, eventually there's really nothing left."<br />
<br />
P: Common what now? Come on!<br />
<br />
S: It is antisensical to think that the more you dilute something, the stronger it gets. I mean, come on!<br />
<br />
B: Guys, my research showed that Hahnemann did realize that there is no chance of even one molecule remaining after all these dilutions, and it further said that he believed that vigorous shaking or pulverising with each step of dilution leaves behind a spirit-like essence no longer perceptible to the senses which cures by reviving the body's vital force. So he did try to take that into account.<br />
<br />
S: I don't know. I don't know about that. I'll have to check that out. My understanding was that &mdash; I think that's more of a modern reconstructing of what he was saying to fit better now that we know that there is a dilutional limit. My readings suggest that at the time Hahnemann wrote that law, that it was not known that there was a limit to how much you could dilute something. We could check that out to confirm that.<br />
<br />
P: He thought it made it stronger, in essence. He did.<br />
<br />
J: You know what's funny? This guy really what wasn't a quack in the sense that he wasn't trying to deliberately hurt people and take advantage of them. I guess he was a quack, but he really ...<br />
<br />
S: By modern standards, but at the time this was prescientific medicine.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, he was a quack with his heart in the right place.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, exactly. I know it's funny, but it's true, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
S: You can't blame him for not being a scientist before there were scientists.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yes I can.<br />
<br />
S: But you can blame people today for believing in something that was nonsense 200 years ago.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: When we have the benefit of 200 years of science to know that it's BS.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, do you remember Randi &mdash; I've read a lot about homeopathy since I saw Randi talk about it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: And I also like the way he really did go to the process of describing how they make a homeopathic remedy.<br />
<br />
S: Well were getting to the third law in a second, but when we talk about infinitesimals, I did some calculations. The dilutions are really, really, really big. One of the common dilutions you'll see is 30 C. A 'C' is a one to 100 dilution, so if you have a ten C, it means you dilute something 1-to-a-100 ten times. 30 C is 1-to-a-100 thirty times. So I did some calculations, and this has been done before, but I just wanted to do it myself to see what I got. And if you start with 1 cc of material, or one cubic centimeter of material, and you dilute it 1-to-a-100 thirty times, the volume of water, the equivalent volume of water that you were ultimately diluting that substance into is a sphere with a diameter of 800 lightyears.<br />
<br />
B: Okay, so that's 800 times 6 trillion miles we're talking about.<br />
<br />
J: Why is that significant, Steve? Do homeopathic remedies typically claim to be diluted to that degree.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: That's what they're saying: 30 C.<br />
<br />
R: That's one of the highest ones, 30 C.<br />
<br />
S: But even if you go significantly less than that, you're still dealing with incredibly large volumes of water.<br />
<br />
B: I could beat that. I have one right here: 200 C "For relief of colds and flu-like symptoms," and it is pronounced {{w|oscillococcinum}}, I believe.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: So 200 C, wow! How many light years is that? You have to go into megaparsecs.<br />
<br />
S: It's probably bigger than the known universe at 200 C.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, when they prepare these remedies, how are they claiming that they're creating something that dilute?<br />
<br />
S: Well because you just serially dilute it, and you just do the math. That's how ...<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, what they do is they just take out a little bit, a little drop, and ...<br />
<br />
S: You take out one CC and put it in 10 more CCs, and you take a CC out of that and put it into 10 more CCs or a hundred more CCs.<br />
<br />
B: Don't forget, you've got to shake. You've got to shake it.<br />
<br />
S: And each time &mdash; so that's the third law, which is "succesion" I guess they call it, where you have to shake it 10 times in each axis" up-down, side-side, front-back, and again, 10 times. That's like the magic number. It's ritual, it's magic, it's witchcraft!<br />
<br />
R: It's magic, but you end up with some very fit arms by the end of it.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: And you ask homeopaths today, well, you know. You can't deny the fact &mdash; there's just math, there is no substance of the original substance remaining in these preparations, and they say, "Well, it retains the essence of what was dissolved into it", and that's what ...<br />
<br />
B: Memory, like a memory.<br />
<br />
S: That's just &mdash; they might as well just say it's magic, because there is no physical, chemical, whatever basis for water retaining the chemical memory or signature of something that used to be dissolved in it. It's nonsense.<br />
<br />
J: That also means that anytime you drink water, that that water, because it interacted with other molecules in its past, it's going to have some weird, unpredictable effect on you. Who knows? Come on, just think about it.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, really the entire Atlantic ocean has the memory of my pee.<br />
<br />
P: That's true.<br />
<br />
J: I thought I tasted something funny the last time I went.<br />
<br />
R: Sorry, about that, guys. I had to go.<br />
<br />
P: Are you sure the law of infinitesimals refers to dilution and not the IQ of the adherents to this theory?<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Good point.<br />
<br />
P: It's incredible.<br />
<br />
S: The lower your IQ, the more likely you are to believe in homeopathy.<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails ==<br />
S: Well let's get to some emails. We had our usual large crop of emails in the last week or so.<br />
<br />
=== Cancer Cures <small>(29:46)</small> ===<br />
S: The first one comes from Peka Strandroth in Sweden. I think this is our first email from Sweden. And she writes<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Hi. Here's something I think you should take a look at: kisscancergoodbye.com<br/>Ken Nickels claims that he cured himself from stage 4 testicular cancer, bladder cancer, liver cancer, and cancer of the lymph nodes by holistic healing, which included lifestyle changes, diet, exercise, rest, prayer, and a holistic medical regimen including Chinese medicine. He claims that it is much better than chemotherapy or radiation. I'm very skeptical, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well, I read Ken Nickels site. It's pretty sparse, but it's totally typical. You could write this stuff in your sleep. It's the absolutely prototypical "I had this awful cancer. The established medicine just wanted to poison me and cut me and burn me. So I went looking for alternatives, and I found this wonderful thing." It's so &mdash; the story is so perfect, it has to be fake. It's totally apocryphal, plus, honestly, there are people out there who had spontaneous remission from cancer who will promote whatever it was that they were doing when they had this spontaneous remission. Or they got the chemo and the surgery but also pursued some alternative modality, and they credit that with whats cured them, or they're in the stage after their initial treatment, but before they get their recurrence. So, a lot of people, they get treated for their cancer. The tumor shrinks, and it goes away for a while, and then they have a couple of years where they don't know if they're cured or not. And then the cancer either comes back or it doesn't. Of course, when the cancer comes back, and they die, you never hear from them again. But if it doesn't, then they go out, they go around proselytizing for whatever it was they were doing.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, if somebody had those four cancers, ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: ... is there any chance spontaneous remission would happen? Does it happen?<br />
<br />
S: It's always possible. Spontaneous remissions do happen. Now I don't believe this guy's story, frankly, and I couldn't find any more information about him on the Internet. But it just looks like too perfect a story, plus the guy is on a Christian ministry, and he's trying to raise money for his ministry. So, ...<br />
<br />
P: Oh, that's nonsense.<br />
<br />
S: I think this is just a way of promoting his ministry and making money. I don't buy it for a second.<br />
<br />
R: There's a special place in Hell for people like him.<br />
<br />
S: And the only thing I did find was &mdash; actually Peka sent a follow-up email when I asked her for some more information, and she said that there actually is some skepticism about whether or not this guy ever had cancer to begin with, which is the other kind of patient, who never had cancer to begin with. It was never really documented that he had it or that he lost it. There's no medical information ...<br />
<br />
R: Surprise!<br />
<br />
S: ... to document what this guy is saying. Surprise, surprise! Sometimes when the quacks their hooks in you from the very beginning, they could diagnose you with cancer with a fraudulent test, then give you their fraudulent therapy, and then claim to have cured you from cancer. Of course, you don't die from cancer. You live your natural lifespan thinking that you were cured from cancer that you never had. So that's always a good way to generate (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
J: Steve, he says on his website "My goal is to not make money with this website."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: "Frankly, I hate the whole concept of money and possessions. My goal is to be able to raise enough money to support our ministry."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: I hate these guys.<br />
<br />
S: Just, too, too perfect.<br />
<br />
R: Seriously, they fill me with a bitter rage that is just unmatched by a million suns.<br />
<br />
S: They are despicable, totally.<br />
<br />
J: This is a guy I would really like Rebecca to see. I love to see Rebecca (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
R: I think I could take him. I know I could take him.<br />
<br />
P: Well, the guys riddled with cancer.<br />
<br />
J: He'll have to change his website to "kissyourassgoodbye".<br />
<br />
R: Maybe I'll start a competitive website and try to call him out. See if maybe ...<br />
<br />
S: He goes through all of the standard conspiracy theories, again.<br />
<br />
P: Like you said, Steve, you can write this stuff in your sleep.<br />
<br />
S: You could. About "the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want to cure you. They just want to treat you and keep you sick. Hospitals and doctors don't want to cure you." Yeah, I sit up nights thinking of ways to keep my patients sick so I can (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and not to mentioned when your family gets cancer. You're going to just let them die ...<br />
<br />
S: Oh, it's ridiculous.<br />
<br />
R: ... because you don't want to give up the big conspiracy.<br />
<br />
S: It's absurd. Think about it. Any pharmaceutical company that came up with the cure for cancer would have their advertising slogan for the next thousand years. "We're the company that cured cancer."<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, "We Cured Cancer."<br />
<br />
S: That's worth billions and billions! Any pharmaceutical company would jump at the chance to cure cancer. It's absurd!<br />
<br />
R: People who work in the mailroom at that company are going out to bars and say "Hey, can I get your number? I work at that company that cured cancer."<br />
<br />
B: They would gladly give up all the business, all the contacts, everything they do, they would gladly drop it all, start from scratch curing cancer, and that's all they do. And they would gladly do it.<br />
<br />
S: It's silly. I wrote an article about this. It's on our website. I go over all the claims. It's so absurd. Things that most people don't realize is that medicine is not this monolithic construct or industry. It's not like we all get together in the same boardroom and cook of conspiracies, or that anyone could control what I think or do as a physician. Not the AMA, not the FDA, not even the University that I work for, and that the standard of care is pretty much established by salaried, academic, usually university-affiliated physicians, who are not in private practice, do not make money based upon treating patients, and are not affiliated with industry or with regulatory agencies. That they're academic. They make their living doing research and publishing papers and being leaders in curing stuff. Their career would be made by anything even approaching a cure for cancer.<br />
<br />
B: They're making you say all that, aren't they?<br />
<br />
R: There's a pharmaceutical rep with a gun to his head right now.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: I'm good, though, aren't I?<br />
<br />
J: I think one of the things that a lot of these people believe is that it really is the pharmaceutical companies. That the doctors ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: It's not that difficult a stretch of the imagination to just assume that all these doctors are not on the take, but you really don't meet the pharmaceutical companies, and those &mdash; I always hear people talk about these gigantic, multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies.<br />
<br />
R: Big Pharma.<br />
<br />
J: It all breaks down when I tell people they have to go to the FDA. They have to go through a very expensive, rigorous approval process, and then the FDA over years of testing and everything, you know. It's a very complicated process to get drugs passed. People really believe that the FDA is behind all of this.<br />
<br />
P: Some people do, you know, the ones that believe we shot missiles at the Pentagon.<br />
<br />
R: Right. It's the same thing, because big pharmaceutical companies do have some underhanded tactics in some of the things they do when it comes to things like patents or when it comes to their lobby. They've got a gigantic political pool.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. I'm willing to to believe that if pharmaceutical companies would make corporate decisions that are in their narrow financial self-interest. They're not just working for the good of the world. Not being naïve. But none of the conspiracy theories about like hiding cancer cures make any sense.<br />
<br />
R: Even with that framework, it still doesn't.<br />
<br />
S: Even if you assume the worst about the pharmaceutical companies, how would they have the cure if they didn't intend to use it? They never would have spent the $100 million to figure out that something worked just to hide it.<br />
<br />
P: They would make trillions if they had.<br />
<br />
S: I think it's true, but even if you don't buy that, that all you could say is that they would never have researched it in the first place. Okay, fine. If you tell me that they are not pursuing certain things because they don't think they can make money off of it, okay, but that doesn't mean they're hiding a cure or that they have it. The other thing &mdash; and this is like with the Vioxx thing &mdash; yeah, sure, maybe they were slow in getting the information out about Vioxx, but it did come out. And the reason is that you can't hide things forever from the research community, because, guess what, we do research with this stuff. The truth ultimately comes out. Do you know what I mean?<br />
<br />
J: Plus, Steve, don't the pharmaceutical companies compete against each other?<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely,<br />
<br />
J: So let's say, for example, that a pharmaceutical company doesn't want to create a cure for diabetes, because they make diabetic drugs. What about another company ...<br />
<br />
S: A start-up will do it.<br />
<br />
J: ... that doesn't make diabetic drugs will try to come up with a cure for diabetes, right?<br />
<br />
S: Exactly, and, again, you would have to think they are all in bed together in one big, giant conspiracy, in order to make this, in order to have this belief. Again, they think it's a big, faceless, inhuman, monolithic entity. That's how they think of it, even if they don't realize it. No, it's made up of people with families and with people they are close to who are going to die of cancer, and you're right. If the big pharmaceutical companies were hiding a cure for cancer, that would mean that there's a way to cure cancer, and that it's known to our current medicine, our current science. It's possible to come up with it. Some startup is going to come up with it. Some people are going to invest 20, 30 million dollars and get the cure and make trillions. And then screw the other pharmaceutical companies. They do that; it happens.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, again like in 9/11, there's the risk. We have the cancer cure. Let's hide it, and some janitor spills the beans, sells it to the National Enquirer, then you become the company that cured cancer and hid it, thereby killing thousands of people.<br />
<br />
S: Right. It' so ridiculous.<br />
<br />
B: Okay, yeah, you're done. Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: Close up shop.<br />
<br />
B: It's worth the risk. It's worth the risk. Come on!<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. It's just &mdash; okay, let's move on.<br />
<br />
J: Well, thanks, Peka. It was a good topic you brought up.<br />
<br />
P: Please.<br />
<br />
S: Excellent. It was excellent.<br />
<br />
=== Dream Interpretation <small>(39:47)</small> ===<br />
S: The next one is a little bit lighter: Skeptics' Guide Forums and Dream Interpretation. This is from "bort," who's actually been on our message boards. So, hi, bort. He writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Hello. I am a graduate student in Houston, Texas studying cell biology. I have really appreciated listening to your show. I especially enjoy the Science or Fiction segment. The audio quality seems to be improving every podcast. ''(S: he asks)'' Have you ever thought about adding forums ''(S: we have and we did. So thanks. And as I said, bort is already on there)''. I do have one question ''(S: he writes)''. There is a syndicated talk show put on by the Dream Doctor at dreamdoctor.com. I have listened to the show a couple of times, and it sounds like it is simple cold reading with a twist. He asked people to describe their dreams, and then he analyzes the dreams. After asking personal questions, he then provides an answer to what the dream is telling the person. Do you believe that there is any legitimacy to the connection of dreams and psychological well-being?<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well, I actually sent the Dream Doctor &mdash; if you go on to the website, you can email them a dream, and then they'll email you back with their interpretation, although they say "there is no guarantee that we'll answer your dream, and you may have to register, make an appointment for a personal reading."<br />
<br />
J: You have to pay.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Yes. They never got back to me. We'll see if they do. But, the short answer is "Not really." I mean, you really can't interpret dreams, because they're so quirky and personal. They have to do with your recent experience and just the chaotic stuff that's going inside your head that nobody could know. It's a lot of random associations that are being made in the dream state. Sure, I mean there may be some kind of basic symbolism in dreams, like you might have a frustration dream or an anger dream or a dream that is some basic way acting out some kind of fear that your wrestling with in your life recently. Sometimes counselors may talk to you about your dreams as just a way of maybe giving them a hint about what's on your mind recently or some kind of issues that you may have. But there's no magic to dreams. It's not the magic window into your psychology or into what's going on. There's nothing really big to learn about it. Usually the symbolism is pretty, pretty basic and straight-forward.<br />
<br />
B: And don't forget, say, for you, a dog might symbolize, I don't know, your girlfriend or something.<br />
<br />
R: Dude, that's sick! I am so glad I'm not dating you.<br />
<br />
B: I just pulled <br />
<br />
S: What does that mean, Bob?<br />
<br />
B: Don't forget, a symol for you &mdash; say you have a dream that your dog is your best friend for whatever bizarre reason. That's your symbol. That doesn't mean that your brother's dog symbol is the same thing, and it doesn't mean that a dog in every dream that you have is the same thing. Symbols are different from person to person and between the same person as time passes.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's quirky.<br />
<br />
B: Symbols are meaningless. Get away from symbols. Don't even worry about symbols, because it's a waste of time.<br />
<br />
R: So that dream where I was beating Jay senseless, I don't actually want to beat Jay sensless. Is that what you're saying? Because I'm pretty sure I do.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
B: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.<br />
<br />
R: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: But in your dream, Jay may have been a symbol for Perry.<br />
<br />
R: Good point, because ...<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I will tell you what, though. You can smack me in the face with a slice of bacon, okay?<br />
<br />
S: Talking about symbols, Bob, on the dreamdoctor.com he has a dream symbols dictionary ...<br />
<br />
B: There you go. There you go.<br />
<br />
S: ... with a lot of symbols and what they mean. For example, here's the bridge: "The bridge is a symbol of transition. Bridges take us from one location to another, usually across emotional waters."<br />
<br />
J: What a jackass!<br />
<br />
S: I was reading some of these, and you could literally &mdash; I mean, you could write these in your sleep, too. You could make these up off the top your head.<br />
<br />
P: Sure.<br />
<br />
S: They are just the most obvious, basic interpretation of whatever it is that he's talking about. It's totally (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
P: Who's going to correct you? It's totally subjective.<br />
<br />
S: Pick anything at random.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Tornadoes. "Tornadoes are unpredictable and violent storms which often separate families and destroy property. So this means instability and outbursts." Oh, that's nice. I love it when people just make stuff up, basically. All right, so dream interpretation. Thumbs down.<br />
<br />
R: I'm going to send in a dream to them, and it's going to be really messed up.<br />
<br />
S: I'll let you know. We'll follow up if we actually (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
J: That would be fun if we just spam them with totally ridiculous dreams.<br />
<br />
R: I'm going to give them the most messed up dream they'll ever read, and it's going to be true.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, jeez.<br />
<br />
J: You're an enigma. Okay, here we go.<br />
<br />
=== Science vs God <small>(44:25)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: The next email comes from Chad Donahue in Seattle, USA. Chad has actually sent us a few questions in the last couple of weeks, but several of them have to do with this basic theme, so I'm just going to read this one as a representative question. He says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Hi folks.<br/>Love your podcast. I want to comment on what appears to be a slight confusion from your April 11th podcast. Hoping you can clear this up. When you spoke of the astounding odds against two species having similar DNA by chance, you seemed to be saying this as an argument favoring evolution over God. First of all, why make any comment on God at all, since to do so is to immediately leave the realm of science. You then mentioned how God would've had to have deliberately designed species to appear related if such slight DNA variations were in place by design. Fair enough, but in what way do odds to cited actually favor an anti-God view? ''(S: I'm not sure what he is saying there)'' I found this a little confusing. Thanks!<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well, I found it a little confusing, too. To clarify what we were talking about. We were talking about the molecular evidence for evolution, the fact that if you look at the pattern of relatedness at a molecular level between the DNA from humans, chimps, and other primates, other mammals, other tetrapods etc., that the similarities and differences at multiple molecular levels exactly follow an evolutionary pattern, what you would predict from a series of relatedness, and that there is no non-evolutionary explanation for that evidence, period. There's just no non-evolutionary explanation for it. That doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. It wasn't an argument about the existence of God or having anything to do with it, but creationists believe that God made all life on Earth. So if you believe that, if you believe that God made everything, then you would have to believe that God created life on Earth deliberately to look exactly as if it had evolved. That was really the only point that we were making. From a logical point of view, that's an absurd claim. From a scientific point of view, what that basically means is that creationism is not science, because if you could say that God created life to appear exactly as if it had evolved, then you're basically making an unfalsifiable statement, which is outside the realm of science. So, I hope that that clarifies our position, and we've also clarified in the past that we don't deal with questions that are formulated in such a way that they are purely within the realm of faith, which means that they don't deal with truth claims about physical reality, and they aren't stated in terms of logic or evidence. So if you want to hold some belief as a personal thing, based upon faith without claiming logic or evidence and it's not a testable claim, who cares? That your personal choice. That's our position.<br />
<br />
=== Surface of the Sun <small>(47:26)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: We had one correction from last week's Randi podcast. This one comes from Roger Wambheim (I hope I pronounced that correctly.)<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I was listening to the May 24, 2006 podcast of The Skeptics' Guide. Again, a great program! I did catch one mistaken comment by Randi and the group. The topic discussed was whether a hydrogen torch could match the temperature of the surface of the sun, and it was quickly 'poo, pooed'. However, the host and guest comments seemed to indicate a misunderstanding of the temperatures at the core of the sun vs. the surface temperature.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: He then cites a couple of references. One, that the surface temperature of the Sun is about 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and that hydrogen torches can generate temperatures around 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, Roger, interestingly Bob and I actually commented about this after the show. We both kind of caught that statement and just didn't have an opportunity to get back to it. Sometimes things get past you in a show like that, but you're right, and that's a common misconception that the surface of the sun is like millions of degrees or is super hot. But actually, the surface of the sun is only about 11,000°F or 6000°C, and that's about the same order of magnitude as torches like acetylene torches. I double-checked some references myself to come up with things somewhere between six and 7000°F compared to 11,000°F for the surface of the Sun. So saying that you have a torch that is as hot as the surface of the sun is not that impressive. That's one of those claims that sounds a lot more impressive than it is. Like my favorite one of those is commercials that say a product uses space-age technology.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you mean from the 1960s?<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Sounds much more impressive than it is.<br />
<br />
J: That's very gee-whizzey, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right. Now, of course, the core of the Sun is millions of degrees, and, Bob, you pointed out to me also that the corona around the Sun may also be millions of degrees, but the surface itself is actually not that hot.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I believe that's what They Might Be Giants puts the temperature at in their brilliant song The Sun is a Massive (sic) Incadescent Gas for those They Might Be Giants fans.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, is there an upper limit to temperature?<br />
<br />
S: There probably is, because at some point energy &mdash; if you put enough energy into matter, you just make more matter.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Well, if anyone out there knows, I'd like to know. Put it on the bulletin board. Also, have we ever visibly seen any suns that have a ring around them like Saturn?<br />
<br />
B: Well, they've found suns with like planetary debris, like a protoplanetary system orbiting the sun. So, the answer would be yes, although it's more of a solar system ring than a planetary ring, but it's similar.<br />
<br />
J: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's not a ring like the ring around Saturn. I think that they're called planetary rings, right, Bob? It's basically a disk or a planetary disk. It's a disk of material orbiting around the sun.<br />
<br />
J: That eventually will become a planet?<br />
<br />
S: That's the belief, yes.<br />
<br />
J: Okay.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(50:39)</small> ==<br />
S: Well we have enough time left for a ''Name That Logical Fallacy'', and then a ''Science or Fiction''. This ''Name That Logical Fallacy'' was inspired by another email. This email is from Cecil, and he wrote to me about another quack. This guy sells himself as Dr. Schulze. Dr. Schulze is actually not a physician, he's a naturopath.<br />
<br />
P: The guy that used to work on Hogan's Heroes?<br />
<br />
R: "Hogan!"<br />
<br />
S: Right. Richard Schulze.<br />
<br />
J: I love that guy. Steve, didn't Cecil write to us before?<br />
<br />
S: He might have. I think Cecil's asked us other questions, year, you're right, Jay. So, this guy's a naturopath, and I'm not saying that they're not real doctors just to be proprietary. Naturopaths are quacks! They are nuts. They believe every completely wacky pseudoscientific ridiculous thing that you can imagine. They prescribe homeopathic remedies. Everything that doesn't make any sense they're into. It's not just using nutrition or natural interventions. They really believe completely absurd anti-scientific things.<br />
<br />
R: Well, I don't think you can say that about all naturopaths, though.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yes you can.<br />
<br />
R: No, I'm pretty sure that I've met one that's not like that.<br />
<br />
S: If you read &mdash; listen, obviously I can't; I've not interviewed every single naturopath that exists. I'm not claiming that that's the truth. But, the leaders of naturopathy, the people who run their colleges, and who run their societies, you can base it on their statements, on their textbooks. This is what naturopathy is.<br />
<br />
R: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: There may be individuals who are trying to be more scientific than the mainstream of naturopathy, but this is what it is.<br />
<br />
P: If you met a naturopath, Rebecca, who was a critical thinker, he was a rare exception.<br />
<br />
R: I think I dated one, actually, very briefly.<br />
<br />
P: You may be slightly biased in your opinion.<br />
<br />
J: Not that bozo again!<br />
<br />
R: No, I swear, he was studying immunology and working in a natural food store, and ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but you've got to delve a little bit deeper than that. We will do a longer segment on it in the future ...<br />
<br />
R: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: ... and I have some guests in mind to talk about it, and you'll see. It is not tea. All right, let's go onto ''Name That Logical Fallacy''. So here I just pulled a couple of statements off of Dr. Schulze's website. So here's the first paragraph. He says "Dr. Schulze's never takes credit for his healing knowledge. In fact, he often says that his patients or even God taught him everything. Regardless of who developed these programs and formula, one thing we do know is they work." So do you guys notice any logical fallacies in that first statement.<br />
<br />
B: Well, how about argument from authority.<br />
<br />
S: Exaclty.<br />
<br />
B: If God's teaching you, that's a big authority.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right. So I think the appeal to God is definitely an appeal to the ultimate authority, which is basically saying "my claims are correct because they come from some authority figure." Or in a broader sense, you could say that the logical fallacy is that "my claims are correct because I possess some virtue," which is the argument from virtue, which I consider to be sort of a subset of the argument from authority. And that's also what he's playing to. That's sort of the bigger concept that he's playing to here: "I'm not taking credit for my hearing knowledge. I'm just a good, humble guy, you know. I'm a virtuous, humble guy, so you should believe what I'm saying."<br />
<br />
J: "We don't want money. I want your money so I can go travel the world and spread, like, kissmyassgoodbye.com, that other guy."<br />
<br />
S: Also saying "one thing we know is that they work", that's sort of Begging The Question. That's not what we do know. That's actually the question, isn't it, whether or not these things actually work. He also writes "We know this because for almost a decade now thousands of people just like you that have never met him and never talked to him have healed themselves of any and all diseases using his powerful and effective, natural healing programs and herbal formula." So, that's a Tautology, right? "We know they work because they work." There's not really any logic to that statement. And there's also another appeal in there, and what's that? Do you guys &mdash; there's another logical fallacy.<br />
<br />
J: Well the one where the people, thousands of people like you.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: What's that called?<br />
<br />
R: Appeal to popularity?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, appeal to popularity. It's kind of like a peer pressure kind of logical fallacy.<br />
<br />
R: And then it's also just anecdotal evidence.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, thousands of people were healed. Well, okay, do you have any proof?<br />
<br />
S: It's an appeal to anecdote. And finally: "Sure, they shut down his clinic and boarded up his windows, but no one can stop this great man's passion and mission. He is alive and well, and his voice is still loud and clear at natural healing publications." I read his newsletter, by the way. His newsletter is basically just a series of ads for his products. So there is kind of like an appeal to persecution. It like this poor guys is being persecuted by the powers-that-be, so, again, he must be right.<br />
<br />
B: I never heard of that one: "appeal to persecution." Are you making these up, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: If you read my article on it, and there are lots of subsets underneath specific logical fallacies.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah. I know, I know.<br />
<br />
S: So you can make up more and more, but they're basically just, again, "this guy has some kind of virtue, and that's why his claims are correct." Whether it's that he is humble, that he is being persecuted by evil people, that his knowledge comes from God, whatever. Those are all reasons why we should believe him.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, you didn't hear the other day Steve said "That's the Banana Fofanafana Logical Fallacy." That's when I realized he was making them up.<br />
<br />
S: I make them up off the top of my head.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve, the link you sent me for Dr. Scholls or whatever, this guy's name is.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: Did you see that gigantic warning on there?<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
J: What's that about?<br />
<br />
S: That's about sort of following the letter of the law by saying "You can't sue me, because I'm warning you up front not to take my advice."<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
S: He's basically saying "But I'm being forced to warn you not to take my advice by the big, powerful powers that don't want me to cure you of all your diseases with my fabulous products."<br />
<br />
R: Kind of (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: He's trying to have it both ways. So, if you sue him, he's like "Well, I warned you that you shouldn't believe me. It's right there on the front of my website."<br />
<br />
J: There wasn't, like, from on-high: "You have to put this warning on here because you're such a quack?"<br />
<br />
S: It's a legal thing.<br />
<br />
J: Okay.<br />
<br />
P: Of course. They all do it.<br />
<br />
S: I don't know if it's ...<br />
<br />
P: Can they cure claims, you know. It's how they run around. How they (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Actually, only &mdash; a study published two years ago, I believe in JAMA, looked at the claims of supplements, which, in this country, you can make supplement claims, so-called "structure function" claims as long as you put a disclaimer on there saying these claims have not been reviewed by the FDA, and only 50% of websites hawking such snake oils comply to the law. So, 50% broke the law in that they did not have the disclaimer, or they made claims they weren't allowed to make.<br />
<br />
P: Let's hope that the Supplement Safety Act one of these days gets passed in Congress.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
P: I doubt it. It's been languishing for years.<br />
<br />
S: Some reasonable version of it.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, well we have just enough time for a Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:01)</small> ==<br />
<br />
''(intro)''<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious, and then I challenge my skeptics to figure out if they can figure out which one is the fake. So, again, two are real, and one is fake. Is everyone ready?<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. Recently, a study has proven that hypnotherapy improves the quality of life for people with irritable bowel syndrome. Number two: astronomers have discovered a previously unknown third moon orbiting Mars. And item number three: researchers have identified and traced the origin of a gene for altruism. Jay, why don't you go first.<br />
<br />
J: Okay. Number one: I remember reading about that, and I know it's true. Number three: I don't remember reading anything about that, but it seems plausible to me. I don't think that there could be a moon that we haven't discovered around Mars at this point. So I'm going to say number two is false.<br />
<br />
S: Alrighty. Perry?<br />
<br />
P: You know number three, obviously is false. A gene for altruism? That's crazy. No, that one's false.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
J: You defy me, again.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, man! I think ...<br />
<br />
J: Steve's crafty. Don't forget.<br />
<br />
R: Steve is a crafty fellow. I agree that number one is definitely true. I think I'm going to go with the moon thing being false. I don't remember reading anything about that.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. Bob?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I'm surprised if two is true: the third moon of Mars, and I didn't hear about it. I'd be a little bit surprised, but three seems even less plausible than two.<br />
<br />
P: Of course!<br />
<br />
B: I mean, one gene? It's almost like one gene for being smart. It's the interplay of many genes, and I would think altruism would be the same way. So I'm going to go with three and be a little bit surprised that there is a third moon of Mars that I didn't hear about.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, so two think that the altruism gene is fake, and two think that the third moon of Mars is fake. But everyone agrees that hypnotherapy improves the quality life for people with irritable bowel syndrome, so let's start with that one. That is true. A new study published shows that patients with irritable bowel syndrome had improved quality life when they were treated with both cognitive therapy and hypnotherapy. Now, the interesting thing about irritable bowel syndrome &mdash; that's one of those syndromes that is a little controversial. Is it really a physiological syndrome, or is it really a psychological syndrome? Some people think that it's really just some people manifest their stress with bowel symptoms. Other people think that it's an actual physiological disorder.<br />
<br />
P: Well, Adriana had it on the Sopranos.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I have to say, personally, I think that it could certainly be one of those things that's real but ends up getting diagnosed in a lot of people who just have anxiety, basically. It's certainly seems to be one of those diagnoses that tends to get attached to people who have a lot of psychological stress.<br />
<br />
B: Now, Steve, you mentioned that hypnotherapy was used in conjunction with cognitive therapy. What is cognitive therapy?<br />
<br />
S: It's a standard therapy technique. Basically gets people to think about things differently. Basically, it's a counseling technique.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, there is definitely a stress connection to irritable bowel syndrome.<br />
<br />
S: There's no question there's a stress connection. The question is is stress just triggering an underlying disorder, or is it all stress. Is stress all you need to have irritable bowel syndrome? It remains a little controversial for that reason. And hypnotherapy is also a little bit controversial, as well. Exactly what is hypnotherapy? And does it really have any validity? So it's kind of two controversial things (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
P: When I was a young person, I guess, let's see, I must have been high school. I guess I was a teenager, my mother took me to a hypnotist, a guy who opened shop five doors down from where we lived, and that guy used to "hypnotize" me when I went there. I played along. I was never hypnotized.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
P: I was never hypnotized.<br />
<br />
S: And that's the point. How do you know?<br />
<br />
J: Steve, what about all those &mdash; you ever see those little videos on the internet where they guy puts 20 people into a trance and they all act retarded and all that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's generally just &mdash; it's just play-acting.<br />
<br />
J: Like drunk people?<br />
<br />
R: I mean, yeah, it's basically you get people up on the stage who want to be there, and they want an excuse to let go of their inhibitions and do crazy stuff, and so the hypnotist just gives them permission to do that.<br />
<br />
S: That's one hypothesis, which is certainly consistent with all the evidence.<br />
<br />
R: Well, it's less a hypothesis, and it's more just what stage hypnotists do.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: I mean, you can call it a hypothesis, but the people who are actually doing it admit that that's what they're doing.<br />
<br />
B: Well, I've talked to a few people who have done it, and they said that "yeah, that was real. That really happened," and they weren't just playing along with it. I'm not up on the latest thoughts on this, but isn't there &mdash; aren't some people more &mdash; can't they put themselves into a more of a suggestible state than other people and can really kind of go with the flow and really believe what's happening?<br />
<br />
S: Sure, but what does that mean to be in a suggestible state?<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: It just means they do what they think they're supposed to do. And, again, there's no objective way to measure the level of insight they have into why they're doing what they're doing.<br />
<br />
P: Well, I'm telling you, for me it was nonsense.<br />
<br />
S: So two of you thought that the altruism gene was fake. That was Bob and Perry.<br />
<br />
P: Uh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: And this one is true.<br />
<br />
R: Ah, hah!<br />
<br />
P: Not it's not!<br />
<br />
J: Yes, it is.<br />
<br />
P: No, it's not.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, good argument, Perry.<br />
<br />
P: It's nonsense! So if I gave ...<br />
<br />
J: Perry, why would it be nonsense? There must be a gene for everything that goes on in our mind.<br />
<br />
B: No, Jay! The interplay. You think there's one gene for intelligence? It's the interplay of many, many genes, and that's true for a lot of characteristics. But, I'm surprised. I'm very surprised.<br />
<br />
J: Well, go ahead, Steve, and explain it before I stick my foot in my mouth.<br />
<br />
S: Well, I didn't say it was in humans.<br />
<br />
B: Uh!<br />
<br />
R: Oh!<br />
<br />
P: Nonsense!<br />
<br />
S: "Researchers trace origin of an altruism gene." So, this is, "For the first time, scientists say that they have traced the origin of an altruism gene, possibly shedding light on the nagging mystery of how generosity and cooperation evolved." They were looking at a fairly primitive multicelled creature called {{w|Volvox}}. But it does engage in behavior, and that behavior can involve helping out its fellows. And they were able to trace the gene for that and identify its evolutionary lineage, basically.<br />
<br />
B: Wait, so they tested altruism in a multicellular creature?<br />
<br />
P: (''laughs'')<br />
<br />
S: Yes. It has division of labor. The behavior they're looking at is whether or not they would forgo reproducing themselves in order to take on jobs for the group, and they were able to trace the gene that would affect their behavior, so that they would, bascially, forgo self replication in order to ...<br />
<br />
J: Well, Steve, would you really call that altruism?<br />
<br />
S: That's actually the definition of altruism, is that you do something which sacrifices your own Darwinian fitness in order for your relatives to survive.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, okay. All right. All right, then. Wow! Then I learned something tonight.<br />
<br />
S: So, you're right that in humans, there's probably more than one gene that influences that behavior.<br />
<br />
J: I guess what I thought of altruism, I was thinking of it as definitely in the human sense, that was obviously your trick here, but wouldn't you think that some characteristics that people have would be gene-related?<br />
<br />
S: I think that all personality characteristics are gene-related, but probably not a single gene.<br />
<br />
J: Not a single gene.<br />
<br />
S: There may be. Somethings may be that simple.<br />
<br />
P: They're certainly brain-related. If you do injury to your brain, you'll change your personality, often.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, like that guy that got the spike through his brain, and he ended up being ...<br />
<br />
S: {{w|Phineas Gage}}?<br />
<br />
R: Phineas Gage, yeah, good one.<br />
<br />
J: That poor dude. I saw a video on that. What an awful thing, right?<br />
<br />
S: He was lobotomized. I think that personality, basically, is genetic. I think the evidence pretty much supports that. Basic personality traits. So that means that the astronomers have discovered a previously unknown third moon orbiting Mars is fake. That one I made up. Not totally implausible. Yeah, you probably would have heard about it, but, you know, Mars could have very tiny, captured, asteroid-like moons, and it's plausible that we might've missed a really small one. But, no, not that likely. So that one was fake.<br />
<br />
R: So what's this? This is like the fifth week in a row or something that I've won?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you're on a lucky streak.<br />
<br />
J: It's really amazing. We're shocked!<br />
<br />
R: Lucky? We're skeptics; we don't believe in luck.<br />
<br />
S: You heard me. No, you're doing very well.<br />
<br />
R: I think that is might be more genetically-based.<br />
<br />
S: You think so? I actually had much more challenging ones all teed up for this week, and I accidentally sent them to Rebecca, so she saw them.<br />
<br />
R: But I knew them anyway, so I still would have won.<br />
<br />
S: Sure you did.<br />
<br />
R: I did!<br />
<br />
S: Maybe we'll put those on the website. We're thinking of having some special Science or Fiction segments just for the website, but as soon as Jay can actually get those webpages set up, maybe we'll start doing that. Well, that's our show for this week. Guys, thanks for joining me again.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you, Steve. Good times.<br />
<br />
S: We had a lot of fun. Coming up in a couple of weeks is Steve Mirsky. Steve writes the Antigravity column for Scientific American and is the host of the science podcast, the podcast of Scientific American, which is usually &mdash; it's one of the number one if not the number one science podcasts out there, and he's going to talk to us about his adventures in science recently.<br />
<br />
R: Awsome.<br />
<br />
S: And next week we have Phil Plait on the show. Phil Plait is the Bad Astronomer, so keep an eye out for him next week. And to everyone else out there, again, sign in to our forums. We want to hear from you. We want engage in conversation with you on the message board. Keep sending us your emails and your feedback. We always like to see it. Well, until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_45&diff=10011SGU Episode 452015-07-29T22:20:30Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== New Skeptics Guide Forum <small>()</small> ===<br />
* The Skeptics Guide forum is now open, so sign up and check it out. You can link to it from the home page.<br />
<br />
=== New 9/11 Footage <small>()</small> ===<br />
* www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/16/terror/main1622101.shtml<br/><br/>Good article debunking 9/11 myths<br/>www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html<br />
<br />
=== UK Docs fight against Alt Med <small>()</small> ===<br />
* news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5007118.stm<br/><br/>Homeopathy article by Dr. Novella<br/>www.theness.com/articles.asp?id=6<br/><br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Cancer Cures <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>Hi<br/><br/>Here's something I think you should take a look at: kisscancergoodbye.com<br/><br/>Ken Nickels claims that he cured himself from stage 4 testicular cancer, bladder cancer, liver cancer, and cancer of the lymph nodes, by holistic healing which included lifestyle changes, diet, exercise, rest, prayer, and a holistic medical regiment including Chinese medicine.<br/><br/>He claims that it is much better than chemotherapy or/and radiation.<br/><br/>I'm very skeptical, but id like to here you thoughts on the matter.<br/><br/>Best,<br/><br/>Pekka Strandroth<br/>Sweden<br/></blockquote><br />
<br />
=== Dream Interpretation <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>Hello,<br/><br/>I am a graduate student in Houston, Texas studying cell biology in Dictyostelium (a model organism). I have really appreciated listening to your show. I especially enjoy the Science or Fiction segment. The audio quality seems to be improving every podcast. Have you ever thought about adding forums to the NESS website? I contribute to several skeptical discussion forums, but I believe the NESS audience may be more scientifically literate than other skeptical websites. I am sure many of your listeners would like a place to discuss the topics on your show.<br/><br/>I do have one question. There is a syndicated talk show put on by the Dream Doctor (www.dreamdoctor.com) I have listened to the show a couple of times, and it sounds like it is simple cold reading with a twist. He asked people to describe their dreams, and then he analyzes the dreams. After asking personal questions, he then provides an answer to what the dream is telling the person. Do you believe that there is any legitimacy to the connection of dreams and psychological well-being?<br/><br/>Keep up the good work,<br/>Bort</blockquote><br />
<br />
=== Science vs God <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>Hi folks.<br/>Love your podcast. I want to comment on what appears to be a slight confusion from your April 11 podcast. Hoping you can clear this up. When you spoke of the astounding odds against two species having similar DNA by chance, you seemed to be saying this as an argument favoring evolution over God. First of all, why make any comment on God at all, since to do so is to immediately leave the realm of science. You then mentioned how God would've had to have deliberately designed species to appear related if such slight DNA variations were in place by design. Fair enough, but in what way do odds to cited actually favor an anti God view? I found this a little confusing. Thanks!<br/><br/>Chad Donohue<br/>Seattle, USA<br/></blockquote><br />
<br />
=== Surface of the Sun <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>I was listening to the May 24, 2006 Podcast of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Again, a great program!<br/><br/>I did catch one mistaken comment by Randi and the group. The topic discussed was whether a hydrogen torch could match the temperature of the surface of the sun and it was quickly 'poo poo'd'. However, the host and guest comments seemed to indicate a misunderstanding of the temperatures at the core of the sun vs. the surface temperature.<br/><br/>1: The temperature on the surface of the sun = 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit<br/> Source: hypertextbook.com/facts/1997/GlyniseFinney.shtml<br/><br/>2: The temperature of a hydrogen torch >= 6000 degrees Fahrenheit (based on first product found on the WWW)<br/> Source: www.azhydrogen.com/works_mainframe.html<br/><br/>This was based on 2 minutes and indicate that the underlying claim is not unreasonable. More knowledgeable listeners would likely be able to improve on my observations and data points.<br/><br/>Roger Wambheim<br/><br/></blockquote><br />
<br />
=== Fighting Quackery <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>Greetings,<br/><br/>My in-laws are into 'natural medicine.' They watch tapes by Dr. Lorraine Day and Dr. Richard Schulze. They purchase products by them and use them all the time. They juice with only organic fruits every morning and they add the purchased additives. They are both retired and in great health.<br/><br/>They rarely get sick and they aren't nearly as run down as they were before they started following the info on these tapes. They preach about the evils of modern medicine to anyone that will listen. They claim that doctors are suppressing cures for diseases, that the AMA threatens these natural Doctors, that doctors want you to get sick so they can cure you, etc, etc.<br/><br/>The problem is that they are blaming their fine health on the tapes and products sold by these quacks. They don't remember the other factor that could have led to their good health; Retiring. That means less stress, less contact with people, less standing for several hours a day, and better diet.<br/><br/>They also know just enough about this topic to be dangerous. They recently took in my wife's grandmother to live with them and forbade her from taking pills. They put her on an organic regimen and fed her quackery products. Grandma almost died, but she finally went to a doctor who put her back on medicine and now she's stronger than ever.<br/><br/>What I don't understand is how on one hand they can be so skeptical and at the same time be so naive. They don't trust the medical profession at all and are very skeptical of modern medicine, but when it comes to these quacks they believe everything they are told. I think it is interesting how the quacks use skepticism to their advantage.<br/><br/>I wanted to ask what I can do when conversation steers toward the quackery. I don't have many tools to deal with this, but I want to at least protect my wife from their influence. I need some suggestions to help them see these quacks are only out for personal gain. I tried to point out in the past that while they claim doctors are only out for money, the quacks aren't giving away products for free.<br/><br/>Dr.'s like this also try to have they people see them as the underdog, shunned by society and silenced by authority. Here is an example of this:<br/><br/>www.dr-schulze.com/warning.asp<br/><br/>Can you point me in the right direction to get info to combat this? Thanks!<br/><br/>Cecil<br/></blockquote><br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Logical Fallacies<br />
<blockquote>From: Dr. Shulze (ND) Natural Healing Publications<br/>www.dr-schulze.com/nhpintro.asp<br/><br/>'Dr. Schulze never takes credit for his healing knowledge. In fact he often says that his patients or even God taught him everything. Regardless of who developed these programs and formulae, one thing we do know is, THEY WORK!<br/><br/>We know this because for almost a decade now, thousands of people just like you, that have never met him and never talked to him, have healed themselves of ANY and ALL Diseases using his powerful and effective Natural Healing Programs and Herbal Formulae.<br/><br/>Sure, they shut down his clinic and boarded up his windows, but NO ONE can stop this great man's passion and mission. He is ALIVE and WELL and his VOICE is still LOUD and CLEAR, at Natural Healing Publications.'<br/></blockquote><br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
Question #1: Hypnotherapy improves quality of life for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome<br />
Question #2: Astronomers have discovered a previously unknown third moon orbiting Mars.<br />
Question #3: Researchers trace origin of an 'altruism gene'<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=10010Template:SGU episode list2015-07-29T22:14:23Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark episode 45 as being transcribed.</p>
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 523]], Jul 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 522]], Jul 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 521]], Jul 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 520]], Jun 27 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 519]], Jun 20 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 518]], Jun 13 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 517]], Jun 6 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 516]], May 30 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 10-Hour Show]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9950Template:SGU episode list2015-06-23T23:05:40Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #44 as done.</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
<br />
Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
<br />
{|<br />
!Key:<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 519]], Jun 20 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 518]], Jun 13 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 517]], Jun 6 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 516]], May 30 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_44&diff=9949SGU Episode 442015-06-23T23:04:30Z<p>Jim Gibson: Finish transcription.</p>
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|episodeNum = 44<br />
|episodeDate = May 24<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
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|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Friday, May 19, 2006. This is your host, Steven Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me today are Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Happy Randi day.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Likewise.<br />
<br />
S: And what Bob and Evan are referring to is the fact that coming up very shortly, we have our second interview with James Randi, so we'll get to that very quickly. But first, just a couple of quick news items.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Human-Monkey Love <small>(00:49)</small>===<br />
* [http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060515/full/news060515-10.html Chimpanzee and Human Ancestors May Have Interbred]<br />
<br />
S: The first, which has been in all the news sites and even made Rebecca's blog, is new evidence comparing the human genome with the chimpanzee genome shows that, for probably up to about 4 million years after humans and chimpanzees split from their common ancestor, they were still, at least occasionally, exchanging genes.<br />
<br />
R: What Steve is trying to say is that they were hooking up with some hot, sweet monkey action.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: Let's just call it what it is.<br />
<br />
E: Why didn't you just say that, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Although, they're not monkeys, I have point out. Don't email me; we know they're not monkeys.<br />
<br />
E: Save your email.<br />
<br />
R: No, and they're also not humans and chimps, either. They are the ancestors of them. But saying 'hot human-monkey love' is funny, so we're going to go with that.<br />
<br />
S: Of course. The lay media has mainly reported this as interbreeding between human and chimps, or the better ones "human and chimp ancestors." At least that's a better way to say it.<br />
<br />
E: That's about the level of their understanding of it all.<br />
<br />
S: It is kind of an interesting topic. And just to give the background on this, what they've done is &mdash; you can date the divergence of two species or how far in the past they had their common ancestor, their last common ancestor, by comparing genes for the same proteins. So, for example, you can look at human and chimpanzee genes for hemoglobin, and you can see how many mutations differ between the two of them. We have a rough idea of how often over time mutations crop up. These are ''silent mutations'', mutations which would not be selected against, and that is kind of a genetic clock, evolutionary clock, and we can say "okay, the human and chimpanzee genes for hemoglobin shared a common ancestor 6 million years ago." So that's about when humans and chimps split apart. And what they do is they look at a number of genes, and they take an average, because the mutation clock is not that precise, so they take an average. But now, because we've sequenced the human genome and sequenced the chimpanzee genome, they were able to do a much more extensive comparison between multiple, multiple genes, and what they found is that there's actually quite a range from about 10 million years to about 6 million years, if you date different genes, which means that some genes between humans and chimps have been isolated from each other for about 10 million years, which means that at that point there had to be distinct breeding populations, one breeding population eventually leading to humans and the other eventually leading to chimpanzees. But that down the road they still interbred; they had sex; and they swapped at least some genes, and, therefore, other genes split apart less recently, like only 6 million years ago. Also, interestingly, they also indicate that humans have much more chimpanzee mutations than chimpanzees have human mutations, which means that the earlier, prehuman population was breeding with the pre-chimpanzee population ...<br />
<br />
R: That's so hot.<br />
<br />
S: ... more than the other way around. Yeah. Rebecca is very, very fascinated by this whole thing.<br />
<br />
R: Who is not fascinated by monkey sex? That's pointing at one person. It's impossible not to be intrigued by the idea of a person having sex with a monkey. Am I wrong?<br />
<br />
B: Can you imagine these early humans having a drink by the cave and they see this monkey, this knucklewalker walking by and like "Hey! Check that out!".<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
B: "Remember that great-great grandpa talked about her."<br />
<br />
R: Like I'd hit it, totally.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Now that's part of the question. Some scientists have been a little bit skeptical of this. If you go back 10 million years, then obviously they didn't really look that much different. They were really almost two races or varieties of the same species, just in different populations. So that's easy to accept. But when you to like 6 million years ago, now you're talking early hominids, probably.<br />
<br />
R: Now you're talking about a really awkward morning conversation. We've all had them. You wake up, and you look at the person next to you. But imagine if the person next to you is more ...<br />
<br />
S: A knucklewalker.<br />
<br />
R: ... chimpish. Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: What's that like, Rebecca? Oh, sorry, had to say it.<br />
<br />
E: Nice, nice.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, ouch! <br />
<br />
S: Maybe this does all cut just a little bit too close to home.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
R: I think somebody's just a little upset that I didn't call the next day.<br />
<br />
S: Maybe, maybe.<br />
<br />
=== Chinese Mirage <small>(05:42)</small>===<br />
* [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2006-05/08/content_583947.htm Rare Mirage Appears in Penglai]<br />
<br />
S: But one more quick news item and then we'll go to our Randi interview.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing that has been passing around the news and also just in our email circles yesterday was this rare mirage in China. You guys have all seen this?<br />
<br />
B: Yes!<br />
<br />
E: Yes.<br />
<br />
B: Very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Very interesting. So the interesting thing about this &mdash; this is in the shore Chinese city of I guess that's pronounced Penglai (''pen-gly'') City, in East China's Shandong province, on Sunday, so just about a week ago. Thousands of tourists were packing the beaches looking across the misty bay at what looked like the image of a city on the horizon, with skyscrapers and buildings.<br />
<br />
B: And cars and people, actually. I mean there ..<br />
<br />
S: The news reports mentioned cars and people. The photographs don't really show cars and people.<br />
<br />
B: Well, yes, it's low-res.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. And the photographs are quite impressive. Now, what's interesting is that like on the skeptical blogs and the skeptical email groups, a lot of people have been dismissive about this thing: "Oh, this is a hoax. This is a Photoshop job," but I don't know. I think the pictures actually look quite convincing. This is a known phenomenon, sometimes referred to as a ''Fata Morgana'' mirage, a reference to Morgan le Fay, who apparently had a castle that floated above the water.<br />
<br />
E: Or not apparently.<br />
<br />
S: This happens from time to time. Sometimes you can see an inverted or upside down image sort of floating above the water. You may see like a ship floating upside down above the water is one way this mirage may manifest. So what happens, basically, is you have hot air above the cool air coming off of the ocean, and this creates a lensing, an atmospheric lensing effect, which causes the light rays to bend around the curvature of the horizon so that you actually see a more distant object, and this is not a precise lensing effect, so you tend to get this sort of layering or blurring effect. And, actually, if you look really closely at the better pictures of this, it does look like that. It looks like the same image spread out and repeated multiple times.<br />
<br />
E: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: But because of buildings, it just looks like more stories on the buildings, but if you really look carefully, that horizontal lining effect seems to be present. So ...<br />
<br />
B: Now, Steve, also, another interesting point about the Morgana mirage is that sometimes it's referred to as a fairy city that seems to be floating above the water, and what that is is that you've got these multiple reflections of light, and it could be up to say a distant mountain peak, and that peak is duplicated and kind of spread out and smeared out, so it actually does look like a castle, like these buildings, like this floating fairy castle, and it doesn't have to be of a city.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: It could be just a mountain peak.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. So this may have to get filed under the amazing-but-true category. It is a rare optical atmospheric phenomenon, but at this point there's no reason to think that this is not legitimate, and the photographs &mdash; there are multiple photographs, not just one photograph that one person is putting up. There were apparently were many witnesses. There are many photographs you could see on the web now. It does fit with this known phenomenon. So this is just a cool mirage, a cool atmospheric phenomena.<br />
<br />
R: Neat.<br />
<br />
S: Well, we're not going to have any other segments on our show this week. No Science or Fiction, no logical fallacy, and no email, because we want to have the rest of our time for an interview with James Randi. So let's go to James Randi now. <br />
<br />
== Interview with James Randi <small>(09:38)</small>==<br />
* [http://www.randi.org www.randi.org]<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is James Randi. Randi, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
JR: It's a pleasure to be here.<br />
<br />
S: Now, Randi needs no introduction, but I'm going to introduce him anyway. He is a renowned skeptical investigator and educator, began his career as a professional magician performing under the name of "The Amazing Randi", and now he runs the James Randi Educational Foundation, and you can visit his website at www.randi.org. The JREF also administers the famous {{w|One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge|Million Dollar Psychic Challenge}}, which we spoke about extensively on Randi's last visit to The Skeptics' Guide. Randi also has published numerous books, including ''The Faith Healers'', ''The Mask of Nostradamus'', ''Flim-Flam'', and many others, with more in the works. So, again, Randi, welcome back to The Skeptics' Guide; it's always a pleasure speaking with you.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, it's good to be here, but I must say, you don't spell my name, you see. Many people try to reach me on www dot randy, R-A-N-D-Y, which is not correct; it's R-A-N-D-I.<br />
<br />
S: OK. ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
R: It's a good point.<br />
<br />
S: So, just to get it out of the way, since we spoke to you last time, you've had some health problems, and I know that all of your fans want to hear how you're doing.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, doing very well; I must say I just came back from the gym workout that I do three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at the local hospital. I have pedaled my way around the world at least a couple of times without moving an inch, and I've rowed myself across the Atlantic Ocean without moving. It's quite effective, I must say. All kinds of whirly-gig equipment there, and constant blood pressure and heart-rate monitoring. It's very thorough and I'm sort of halfway through that three-month session, now.<br />
<br />
S: It's basically cardiac rehab; is that what you're doing?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah. Mm-hmm.<br />
<br />
S: And what happened, exactly?<br />
<br />
JR: Well, what happened. Let's go back to the beginning. I was born at the age of &mdash; <br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: At a very early age. Let's say that. 1928, to be exact. Very good year. Yes, right after TAM 4, after all the festivities had wound up and everything, I came back to Florida here, and a couple of days after that, I felt a tightness in my chest, which I recognized, having had heart problems before, {{w|Angina pectoris|anginas}}, and I went out to the local hospital, collapsed at the hospital, went into emergency, and spent a few weeks under morphine. Morphine is my great friend; it's my new friend altogether. And woke up having had a double bypass, which rather slows you down, to say the least. But it was very highly successful. There were complications. I had to have my gall bladder out three days after the bypass, which is relatively minor. But they did punch a few holes in me. As I said on the web page not too long ago, when I got a first good look at my chest in the mirror, I found that I looked like a piece of parchment that Indiana Jones might have taken while searching for the lost treasure of Babylon. Little Xs all over it, and an interesting incision which starts behind my left knee and goes up into my abdomen. I don't know how they had to go all that way They must have ...<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's where they harvested the vein, I guess, apparently.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, they harvested the vein, yes.<br />
<br />
R: They took the scenic route.<br />
<br />
JR: I could have given them a handful.<br />
<br />
S: But the angina's cleared up; your symptoms have cleared up and you're doing well, it sounds like.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh yeah. No, I'm coming along very well. I've got certain blood pressure things that I've got to look at, and I'm on minor medication; only four pills a day. One of the fellows at the gym was telling me today he takes sixteen pills a day, so I feel only one quarter as bad as he does.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)'' Right. Let me ask you a question: while you were in the hospital during this entire experience, were you ever offered any alternative medicine modality such as prayer or therapeutic touch or aromatherapy or anything like that?<br />
<br />
JR: Well, judging from the recent reports on how badly prayer fails, I'm very grateful to the millions upon millions of people all around the world who didn't pray for me, ...<br />
<br />
R: ''(laughs)'' It worked.<br />
<br />
JR: ... because that obviously helped me somewhat.<br />
<br />
S: I did not pray for you, so you're welcome.<br />
<br />
JR: There you go. Thank you very much!<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: Now, Linda, in our office here, the indefatigable Linda &mdash; I mean, there's no way of tiring this woman &mdash; she wanted to pull a little bit of a gag, but some friends deterred her from doing. She wanted to have when I woke up, on one of those occasions in the hospital, they wanted to have a nurse doing {{w|Reiki|reiki}} on me.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: Or someone dressed as a nurse, at least. And they sort of drew the line at that and said no, I would probably rise from my bed of pain with the tubes down my throat and everything else and all the electrodes attached and strangle her, you know?<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
S: Now, for the listeners, reiki is just a Japanese form of therapeutic touch where they manipulate your energy field.<br />
<br />
JR: ''(sarcastically)'' Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
S: I'm sad to say that some nurses at Yale are enamored of reiki. They offered it to me a couple of times.<br />
<br />
E: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: I declined, of course.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, are you sure that's what they were offering you when they asked if you wanted therapeutic touch?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, oh, I never thought of that.<br />
<br />
S: Maybe I should have reconsidered.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
S: I'll have to follow up and find out. So, yeah; it's terrible that in mainstream American hospitals there's this sort of creeping pseudoscience that is justified by the hospitals on the basis that, "well, this is what our patients want, so ..."<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: "... why shouldn't we give it to them?"<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And it's good marketing.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, how about blood-letting? If I go in there and I want to be bled, I wonder if they would do that?<br />
<br />
R: Well, they should have respect for your beliefs.<br />
<br />
E: Or have your {{w|Humorism|humors}} balanced.<br />
<br />
S: If they could bill you for it, they probably would do it.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, that's my good humor and my bad humor.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
=== Faith Healers <small>(15:53)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now, we didn't talk last time about one of your favorite topics. That's faith healing, and I notice in your most recent issue of "Swift" online, which is basically your online newsletter on the R-A-N-D-I.org website, you talk about &mdash; or it might have been the last issue, that you talk about your recent evaluation of a faith healer.<br />
<br />
JR: What was his name?<br />
<br />
S: I think it was Benny Hinn! {{w|Benny Hinn}}.<br />
<br />
JR: Benny Hinn. Benny Hinn. Yes, Benny Hinn, the fellow who is probably the leading figure in faith healing these days, who got his comeuppance a few times. Certainly in Denmark, he got his comeuppance. They revealed his methodology and interviewed a number of people he had apparently healed who had turned out not to be healed. Oh, great surprise right there. But Benny Hinn was not around at the time that I wrote my book ''The Faith Healers'', so he didn't even get mentioned in there. As a matter of fact, I sort of put Benny Hinn in business because I put out of business several of the major faith healers like {{w|Peter Popoff}}, for example. And Benny Hinn stepped into that void. He picked up everybody that had abandoned Popoff, because these people never abandon faith healing, they simply go to a different faith healer.<br />
<br />
B: Isn't Popoff doing the rounds again?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh yeah. No, he's very active again. Yeah. He's very active. He changed the name of his ministry from Peter Popoff Ministries to People United for Christ, and how can we fight that?<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
R: No, everybody loves Christ. I think.<br />
<br />
E: Or they should.<br />
<br />
R: And Ernie &mdash; {{w|Ernie Angley}} &mdash; is back as well, Randi. We talked about that I think a few weeks ago.<br />
<br />
JR: ''(exaggerated)'' Praise Jay-sus!<br />
<br />
R: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
JR: You know, I attended, along with {{w|Paul Kurtz}} and Barry Carr years ago, I actually went out to Akron, Ohio and I sat in the front row of one of the meetings that he held in the church there, his church. Believe me, the rugs were as thick as the lawn on the best golf course. I think that rug had to be mowed twice a week. It was a luxuriously &mdash; he had a ''wonderful'' orchestra and a ''superb'' choir, and then this awful-looking man who looks like he's really been stuffed into a silk shirt, and he's wearing corsets. You can tell that he's wearing corsets of some kind to hold it all in.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, wow.<br />
<br />
R: And doesn't he have &mdash; does he have a thick, luxurious rug somewhere else other than his floor? ''(giggles)''<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, that. Believe me, that rug &mdash; what I said to Kurtz was, and Kurtz kept on shushing me. You know, Kurtz is like that. I told him, I said, "hey, if he took that thing off, threw it on the floor and said, 'be healed', it would walk up and it would run away, and it would probably reproduce itself in the corner." That is the worst-looking rug. He never turns his head in a hurry, because he may leave the rug behind, you see.<br />
<br />
R: Right. He can't go out in a stiff wind.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, it's awful looking. Yeah. So, anyway, we visited Ernest Angley.<br />
<br />
S: Now, getting back to Benny Hinn, you said... so what is his shtick? What are his methods?<br />
<br />
JR: It's the same old thing, same old thing. As a matter of fact, we did &mdash; my first opportunity to really talk about it &mdash; BBC called me and asked me if I would go up to Toronto and get in disguise appropriately as Adam Gerson, which means wearing a red wig, dyeing my beard temporarily red, and putting in black contact lenses, which I did. I went up to Toronto, and they gave me all kinds of strange identification to hang around my neck, so many cards that none of the guards even looked at me, because I was festooned with all kinds of ID. And here I was, in Toronto, at the Madison Square &mdash; not Madison Square, pardon me &mdash; Maple Leaf Gardens &mdash; I'm sorry; wrong city. Which is a ''huge'' place, and the place was jammed to the ceiling. There was no room for anybody. They had people up and down the aisles, and they had a crowd out on the street estimated at over 1500 people who couldn't get in, and they were just clamoring at the outside doors. So it was a great success for Benny Hinn.<br />
<br />
But, we caught Benny Hinn. We got him really good. We got into the counting area with the money, with the coin sorters, and they were sorting the checks and putting them into big boxes and such, and the cash and everything else. We got into the counting area. We even interviewed some of the people there, and they gave away an awful lot of secrets. We found them rehearsing the audience that was coming up on stage, rehearsing them on the stairs leading up to where the video cameras were on how to fall down, and that they would be protected and such as they fell. They would have catchers right there, and they even rehearsed them, right on the stairway leading up to the stage. And we found there was a roped-off area on the main floor at the back where all wheelchairs were kept, especially if they were wheelchairs that were customized. That means that this person doesn't rise from that chair under any circumstances, and they kept all those people back there.<br />
<br />
And right in the middle of the whole thing, a young couple who had a child in their arms, a child about, I'd say eight to ten &mdash; very hard to say &mdash; dressed in an exercise suit. The child was drooling and crying out. I don't know what the problem was, but it was an obvious neurological difficulty. And they rushed right through the security guards, pushed them aside bodily, and rushed up and got on the stage. And Benny Hinn invited them up, naturally. Now there was nothing being broadcast live. This was all being videotaped for future use, and I can assure that section of the tape did not hit the airwaves ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
JR: ... later on. But they broke right through. They got up on the stage, and the husband yelled at Benny Hinn. He said "We followed you through four or five cities now, and we're trying to get on the stage, and they wouldn't let us on the stage. I want you to heal my son!" And Benny Hinn was very cool. He took the kid in his arms, and he hushed the audience and he looked heavenwards with the light on him appropriately, of course, and he said something to the effect, "Sweet Jesus, heal this child, in your own time. Heal him now, if you wish, or tomorrow, or next week. Whenever you wish, Good Lord", you know, that kind of thing.<br />
<br />
E: Outrageous.<br />
<br />
JR: "Because all the wisdom is in your hands." And then he gave the child back, still screaming and drooling, to the parents. Two security guards hustled them offstage, and literally dragged them down the stairs. They were trying not to go, so they were being led away willy-nilly, which is an interesting expression not many people know the meaning of. It means "willing or not willing." And they got them down into the aisle. And we saw them, and we videotaped them being dragged down the hall and pushed out of the pad-locked doors into the street, and the door slammed after them. Meanwhile, Hinn was singing away and the orchestra started up and all this kind of thing. That was never used on the BBC program because Benny Hinn's lawyers reminded the BBC that they had lawyers up the gazoo. They were all over the place, and he had better be very careful &mdash; they had better be very careful if they tried to sue him. So they didn't, and the program was completely whitewashed, and it finally got on the air, but it was nothing. Absolutely nothing.<br />
<br />
R: That's pathetic.<br />
<br />
S: Really? So the BBC News let themselves be intimidated by a huckster like that?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, this was not the BBC News. This was a BBC program of some kind under some title or other. I've forgotten. I've got it in my videotape library, but it's hard to look that sort of thing up because you grit your teeth a lot while you're watching the thing. But Hinn was seated in front of the camera, very calmly. He knew that he had the thing under control and that they were not going to use any of that footage.<br />
<br />
S: That's terrible. And of course, the desperate parents, I mean, you know, obviously if you have a child who's neurologically devastated, it is an incredibly devastating thing, so you could understand the parents' desperation. And they were just given the bum's rush, because he knew that he couldn't heal this kid ...<br />
<br />
JR: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: ... or give the appearance of healing them.<br />
<br />
JR: That's right. He didn't want anything like that happening. Now, we actually went across the street after this event and we sat in a coffee shop across the street. This was about 20 minutes before the crowd let out. We had to fight our way through the people who were blocking traffic on the street trying to get in. And we went to the coffee place across the street, sat down at the back, and we happened to sit right beside a table where there was a rather large lady seated there with tears streaming down her face and a handkerchief to her eyes, and she was being talked to by her feminine companion there, and we overheard the conversation. And she was saying, "but I've followed him over 11 cities, all over the United States and Canada. I don't have any more money. I can't get up on the stage. And we need healing. We need healing" and she was sobbing away. And her woman friend took her by the hand and said, "but dear, you haven't given everything that you have, have you? Because he said that God wants you to give ''everything'', as far as you possibly can. You've still got the CDs; you've still got those investments. You've really got to reach deeper, dear."<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
JR: This was so &mdash; and the woman was saying, "But I can't; I haven't anything to leave the children. I've cashed in the CDs." And she was going on and on. We just moved our table. We couldn't take it any longer.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, my God.<br />
<br />
S: Heartless, heartless.<br />
<br />
E: Evil.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, evil. It's not just heartless; it's evil.<br />
<br />
S: It is.<br />
<br />
R: Do you think that there's any way to save people from that kind of ignorance?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, educate them. But they have to be educated before they go there, before they fall into this trap of believing this crap. They have to be educated. Education &mdash; hey, that's why I call it the James Randi Educational Foundation. We try to be educational, if we possibly can. Educating people is not all that easy, but we sure as hell try.<br />
<br />
S: And you're absolutely right. You do have to get to people before they fall prey, because once they're a true believer, once they're in the clutches, the psychological mechanisms are just too powerful.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: It's very hard for people to admit that they've been duped to that degree.<br />
<br />
JR: Right. And I just answered somebody on email yesterday, the usual thing, which I really hate to put out. His wife has completely fallen for a faith healer and has reached into the bank account and pretty well stripped that out to send all this money off to him. And the man said, "How do I convince her of it?" He said, "I led her to your page, and she just kept on shaking her head and turning away from it and saying, 'No, that's the Devil at work. That's the Devil at work.'" And I just told him, I said, "Frankly, I think you should give up. There is no way that you can convince the true believer. The true believer will ignore all evidence to the contrary because it's comforting to believe what he or she chooses to believe. And she's going to have to learn on her own, but I don't think there's anything you can do." I hate to tell people that. That's ridiculous. There should be a way, but I don't know what the way is. I really don't.<br />
<br />
B: The first thing that he should do, I believe, is prevent any access of &mdash; prevent her from accessing all of their finances.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, just hide the money.<br />
<br />
B: I mean, oh my God, I would make sure she couldn't get a dime unless I was involved. That'd be the first thing I would do.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, well, what can you do? What can you do?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I mean, protecting yourself is easier than protecting your loved one.<br />
<br />
E: You can't cure it. You can only put it in blocks and preventative measures as best as possible.<br />
<br />
JR: Absolutely right.<br />
<br />
=== Patenting and Licensing Pseudoscience <small>(27:48)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, Randi, to change topics a little bit, you've also written recently about the federal patent office, the {{w|United States Patent and Trademark Office|U.S. Patent Office}}. This is an issue that crops up now and again. They are in the habit of granting patents to so-called inventions that are totally pseudoscientific. And you've had some entries on Swift recently about that as well.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, I have, and I perhaps came down pretty hard on the U.S. Patent Office. I now get people within the Patent Office are writing me, saying, "Well, we just don't have the personnel." Why don't you have the personnel? I'm paying taxes for it. I would like you to have the personnel, please. Why make excuses like this? I don't think that's a valid excuse at all.<br />
<br />
E: Of course not.<br />
<br />
JR: Get the people in there, if you have so many inventions pouring in there. Of course, there's also this business of being politically correct. You don't want to really refuse anybody. And one of the habits that they have, apparently, is just to grant a patent just to shut somebody up. That's not the purpose of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, not at all. I object strongly to this, to get rid of people by simply giving them a patent. Because that gives them the authority, a false authority, but the apparent authority, that this thing has been ''approved'' by the U.S. government, by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. "They wouldn't give it a patent if it weren't the real thing." Oh, get outta here.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: That's right, and we see that in licensing and regulation in general, that the government sees regulation, whether it's licensing or giving a patent or whatever, as a means of regulating an industry, and they do not see it, necessarily, as endorsement of legitimacy, any kind of, like, scientific validity. Unfortunately, the public does see it as a stamp of scientific legitimacy.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: So the same is true, for example, when you license homeopaths and license acupuncturists. So they say "Well, we're just doing ..."<br />
<br />
JR: Or even psychics.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or whatever, license psychics; I mean, there's really no end to it. And then the psychic or the homeopath or whatever can say that "I'm a licensed practitioner, licensed by the state. I've passed some kind of regulation, therefore there must be some legitimacy to it". But that assumption is completely false. And the same holds true of the patent office. The makers of crank and fraudulent devices prominently display the fact that their technology is patented. The patent office says that there's two criteria that you need to have in order to be patented: your invention has to be new. There's gotta be something novel about it. And it cannot be so obvious that &mdash; an obvious application or extension of existing technology. There's gotta be something innovative about it. But that's it. They do not have the criteria that it has to work, or even theoretically be able to work.<br />
<br />
E: Do they even hold fast to that second criteria? I would question that.<br />
<br />
R: Well, that's just it. They're overloaded with so many patents that things slip through the cracks, and they get to the point where ... <br />
<br />
B: Well, being obvious is a judgment call, so that's very hard to quantify; you know, ''obviousness''. So I think they might try to make sure that it's not an obvious application, but it's a judgment call.<br />
<br />
E: But the peanut butter and jelly sandwich? I mean, you know, that's pretty obvious to me.<br />
<br />
JR: Yep, {{w|Sealed crustless sandwich|that has been patented}}, and I think isn't it {{w|Dunkin' Donuts}} that owns it now? I think it's Dunkin' Donuts. ''(voices overlapping)'' I made one the other day in my home but I had to close the curtains on the window there and to eat it in silence, and I didn't answer the phone during that time, in case somebody was spying on me. Yes.<br />
<br />
R: Very smart.<br />
<br />
B: I owe them lots of royalties, I guess.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ''(chuckles)'' Well, there's a potential solution, if you check out the most recent issue of Swift, a very helpful young woman wrote in to Randi about ... ''(chuckles)'' there's a peer review process that they're looking into where the applications, basically, they would go through a peer-review process before they hit the actual patent application office. And that could really help cut down on the number of crap applications that make it through.<br />
<br />
JR: That's probably true, Rebecca, but one point I must make here, that {{w|Bob Butterworth|Butterworth}}, was his name, he was the former Attorney General of the state of Florida. And what I wrote to him, and I used to lecture for his Safe And Law squad, the gypsy contingent people there, on the latest scams that these people were pulling. I would go out to Tallahassee once a year and lecture for his group. I haven't been invited since; I don't know why. And he said, when I suggested that they license psychics, but that the psychics had to pass a written test and a practical test of what they claimed they could do. And he said, "Oh no, that wouldn't work because it's impossible to test psychics." Get outta here!<br />
<br />
R: Ugh.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
JR: You can test counterfeit money; you can test a doctor, a plumber, a masseur. Any of these people you can test. You can find out if they know what they're talking about. But he seemed &mdash; what he did was reflecting what the psychics told him. "Oh no, we can't be tested." "Oh really? OK, I'll tell Mr. Randi that then."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: Incredible.<br />
<br />
S: Which is true of these things in general, that the profession being regulated gets to decide what the criteria are for licensure.<br />
<br />
JR: Exactly!<br />
<br />
S: So psychics get to decide what you need to have to be licensed as a psychic.<br />
<br />
JR: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: It just becomes a means of protecting a monopoly in the end.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, indeed, and that's very dangerous. I'm all for psychics being licensed, but I want to know that they will pass certain tests. And of course, they don't like that at all.<br />
<br />
S: Right, because none of them could pass it.<br />
<br />
JR: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: If it were the kind of test that would be meaningful, you know. It certainly wouldn't be unreasonable to require that somebody prove that they have psychic ability before they are licensed by the state to sell their services to the public.<br />
<br />
JR: Right. Services or a product.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. Service or product. That's right.<br />
<br />
=== The Amaz!ng Meeting 4 <small>(34:28)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So what's in store for [http://www.amazingmeeting.com The Amaz!ng Meeting] next year coming up? Who do you have lined up for that?<br />
<br />
JR: Well, you know, we were very late with it because of my illness, and Linda and Jeff Wagg have done sterling efforts, and Hal Bidlack, have been getting people together, and quite frankly, I'm not too aware. I spoke to ''Scientific American'' &mdash; to {{w|John Rennie (editor)|John Rennie}} at ''Scientific American'' the other day, and he's trying to put us in touch with {{w|Alan Alda}}. But Alan Alda has now taken on a couple of more series, apparently, and ...<br />
<br />
E: Oh, wow.<br />
<br />
JR: .... is very, very busy. ''Scientific American'' &mdash; what is it called &mdash; ''{{w|Scientific American Frontiers|Frontiers}}'', I think it was called ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: ... program is now finished for ''Scientific American'' as a broadcast. They'll probably be repeating the shows, I would hope. But Alan Alda is very, very busy now, and I don't know whether we can depend on getting him. But I am asking John Rennie, the editor of ''Scientific American''.<br />
<br />
B: He's great.<br />
<br />
E: He is great.<br />
<br />
JR: After all, the next Amaz!ng Meeting will be on science and the media. And that certainly is his forte. ''Scientific American'', I must tell you, in my opinion, is the ''only'' media bulwark that we have, aside from PBS ''NOVA'' and similar programs, the only bulwark we have against the nonsense. It's the only official one we have.<br />
<br />
S: That's true, and he's spoken for our group, and I've talked to him about this, that when it comes to mainstream science journals, ''Scientific American'' is the only one that sees it as part of its mission confronting pseudoscience, or educating the public about pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
JR: Indeed.<br />
<br />
S: Other science journals either pander, like ''Discover'' magazine, which is another sort of popularist magazine, at times even panders to pseudoscience, or they just see it as not part of their job. So they just completely ignore the topic, completely.<br />
<br />
JR: I must tell you, in passing, that {{w|Michael Shermer}} does this wonderful column for ''Scientific American'', of course.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: Now we're all very grateful for that. I almost got that contract, though. As a matter of fact, John Rennie had consulted with me, and it was pretty well set that I was going to do the "Skeptical American" in ''Scientific American''. And it fell through at the last minute when they sold the whole shebang, all of ''Scientific American'', to a German publisher. And the German publisher issued new rules saying that only Ph.Ds could write articles that would be published in ''Scientific American''.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, my God. Really?<br />
<br />
JR: Which would have left ''Scientific American'' without {{w|Martin Gardner}}; he has a couple of Ph.Ds, but they're not in science.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, wow.<br />
<br />
JR: And they're not even in mathematics. So he would've been left out. They had to have a Ph.D in that specialty before they could write. Now this is a German attitude, a very correct German attitude. ''(German accent)'' "You vill do this".<br />
<br />
''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
JR: But, nonetheless, they had to go along with it, and so I lost out on that. But I'm ''so'' glad that Shermer was able to get in there, because of course, he has the degrees that are essential to make a column.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: He does do a very good job with it, too.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, he does.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. It's an excellent column. "Skeptic" is just simply the name of the column.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Randi, getting back momentarily to TAM 4, I heard a rumor that TAM 4 was going to take place in Manhattan. Is that true?<br />
<br />
JR: ''(laughs)'' No, it's going to take place in Las Vegas again. I say "unfortunately" to a certain extent, because I can't stand Las Vegas. I spoke to {{w|John Stossel}} the other day. I've been trying to talk him into doing it. He's doing Shermer's next do at the beginning of June, and I'm very happy that he is, but he won't go to Las Vegas. He just says he despises the place. Frankly, I'm very uneasy when I'm there, too, because I see around me, all of them are losers!<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: All of this luxury that they paid for, they're trying to get their money back somehow. And I find it rather sad. I'm depressed by the place.<br />
<br />
R: {{w|Murray Gell-Mann}} went on a huge rant at TAM 4 about Vegas; it was pretty funny. He had a point.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, I probably agree with him; I probably do.<br />
<br />
S: That's {{w|Penn and Teller}}'s home, right?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is part of the reason for it, of course. ''(clears throat)''<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: And it's really cheap, which is nice.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, yeah; indeed.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it's cheap because they want to get people there to gamble.<br />
<br />
R/E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So the plane fares and hotels are cheap.<br />
<br />
R: Which is what &mdash; it kind of makes me laugh, because they give us these great deals to have, you know, 800 skeptics come out and not gamble.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
R: Suckers.<br />
<br />
JR: I think they lose on our group.<br />
<br />
R: They do.<br />
<br />
JR: You know, the wonderful thing is, when you talk to the casino, they say, "Well, if you get 150 people, this is what things will cost you," and they give you a whole price list. They say, "if you have 300, however, you get the auditorium for free", or you get some sort of a thing. By the time you get up to the 800-and-something that we had this last time, pretty well everything's free. It's wonderful. And we get a cut on the room rates and all those things. It's just wonderful. Because they want to get bodies in there. Warm bodies with wallets, or purses.<br />
<br />
E: Yep, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: Well, I certainly understand the practical reasons for having it there. It would be nice to have it on the East Coast at some point in time, but ...<br />
<br />
JR: Well, we're entertaining the idea of doing it in the U.K., because we just got a very comprehensive survey that was done by an agency over there who are volunteering to work for us, which is very wonderful, and we're very grateful for it. They did an extensive survey of whether or not it would go well in the U.K., and the answer's a resounding ''yes''. We can draw people from all over Europe and quite some distance into Europe as well as all of England, of course. And we could probably get a few over from America at the same time. I think that the following year, we will probably seriously think about doing it in probably either in Cambridge or in London itself.<br />
<br />
R: My only fear with that is that one of my favorite things about TAM is meeting all of the different international people, and most recently I met a ton of really cool people from England, and I'm afraid that if they get their own, then they're not going to come to Vegas next year.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, that's possible, yeah. We've got to think of all these possibilities. The logistics of it are really quite complicated.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Would this be your first meeting in Europe?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, yeah, for TAM, certainly. All the TAMs &mdash; the first one took place right here in Florida, and that was attractive enough, but what did we get? 75 people or something like that?<br />
<br />
''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
S: Oh, Really.<br />
<br />
JR: Look at where we are now; we're over 800 people. Damn, that's ...<br />
<br />
R: And you've also got the cruise coming up, right?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, the cruise. The cruise is very well subscribed to. As a matter of fact, I don't know that we actually have any room for any more. I think we might have already filled the berths, as they say.<br />
<br />
R/E: Wow.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: This is a cruise through the {{w|Bermuda Triangle}}.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, but a lot of people are scared, you know.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: They don't want to go. And it's "Oh, jeez, right through the Bermuda Triangle." But they've agreed to be wrapped in bandages and put in cold storage while we're in the Triangle itself.<br />
<br />
E: As long as you mention the Triangle, I was reading through ''Flim-Flam'' again, and you have a chapter in there about the Bermuda Triangle. And you give a wonderful map about reported disappearances that are attributable to the Bermuda Triangle, and one of them is actually, like, in the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of California, or something like that. I got a kick out of that.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, one up in Newfoundland. But they were all attributed to the Bermuda Triangle.<br />
<br />
E: Now ''that's'' a triangle.<br />
<br />
JR: The one that happened in Newfoundland is very interesting. The plane had been to Miami and was flying to Newfoundland, and right off the coast of Newfoundland it suddenly exploded in mid-air. This was a military plane, and there's pretty good reason for having exploded when you know the circumstances. The point is, however, that it had only been to Miami, and it was now off the coast of Newfoundland, and that was enough to make it explode. So it's included as one of the Bermuda Triangle (''unintelligible'') <br />
<br />
R: That just shows the power of the Triangle, Randi.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, yes, indeed, yes.<br />
<br />
R: It's incredible.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, I'm glad you brought some sanity to me, there.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I mean, you can't even think about it while you're on a boat anywhere in the world or you might sink.<br />
<br />
JR: Very true. Very true.<br />
<br />
S: The boat you're on may have been through the Bermuda Triangle at some time in the past.<br />
<br />
JR: There you go. Well, you know, I only have done one other cruise in my whole life, and that was to replace a magician friend of mine when I was living in New Jersey. He called me in desperation, and he was quite ill, and he said, "You have to substitute for me". So I call the U.S. Rotter &mdash; the S.S. or U.S.? I don't know &mdash; Rotterdam, which is a considerably smaller ship than the one we'll be on on the cruise, and I offered my services, and they accepted because they were rather desperate, I guess. In any case, I did a show onboard the ship. The average age of the passengers was deceased.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: Almost everybody had a walker. They looked like living T.V. antennas as they walked around, you know? With all the aluminum rods sticking out in all directions. They didn't know what I was doing. I was out there doing my magic act that I've done for decades and such, and you would hear things like, "Morrie, what's he doing? What's his name? What did he say?" You know.<br />
<br />
R: "Speak up."<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, and "I don't know, Ruth. I don't know, Ruth. It's amazing something. I don't know." And they didn't know who I was. They didn't care. The cruise director came to me after and he said, "Take the money and run." He says, "Don't worry, everybody fails on this particular cruise. Nobody knows what's happening in the audience. They just want to get on their canes and get out of there, you know?" So I took the money and ran. But I was at the purser's desk, sending a message of some kind back to the mainland, and a lady came along and she was looking at the map that they had there with a pin showing where you are at the moment, you see. And she looked and she says, ''(Yiddish accent)'' "Hey, ve're in the Bermuda Triangle! Vat's dis? I'm gonna die!" She was terrified! She was running around with her hands over her head saying, "We're in the Bermuda Triangle!" She thought she was doomed right there. I didn't do much to try to calm her down. I took her over to the rail to see if she could lean over. "Oh, you can &mdash; oh, there you &mdash; " That was beautiful. Splash.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, by the way, I've got something going up. I'll give you this little heads-up here. I've got a thing which I just sent off to {{w|Jay Leno}} for his funny headlines; you know?<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
JR: And I'm putting it up on the web page<ref name="swift">Randi.org: [http://archive.randi.org/site/jr/2006-05/052606action.html Swift Archive - May 26, 2006]</ref>. Not this week; next week. It's a full-page advertisement showing people with tablets in their hands and ginseng and various things. "Start working on your bachelor of science degree in alternative medicine or call about our additional bachelor's and master's degree programs". But at the top, it's headed in huge letters, "B.S. in Alternative Medicine".<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: I think that's an appropriate headline, believe me.<br />
<br />
B: Very.<br />
<br />
R: It's perfect.<br />
<br />
JR: So I think that may get on Leno eventually.<br />
<br />
S: What university is offering that?<br />
<br />
JR: This is Boca Raton campus of Everglades University, which is not one of your huge, famous universities, obviously.<br />
<br />
S: How could you offer a Bachelor's of Science in something which is totally non-scientific.<br />
<br />
JR: I don't know. Ask them. On the back, it has "B.S. in Construction Management", which sounds a little more proper, but ...<br />
<br />
B: Maybe B.P.S.: Bachelor's of Pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
R: There you go.<br />
<br />
JR: Maybe. I didn't think of that.<br />
<br />
=== Water-Powered Cars <small>(46:34)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, Randi, what's some of the more silly things you've run into recently? Anything really absurd you'd like to tell us about?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, I'd have to think about that. There's so many. ''(chuckles)'' They're all over the place. The most recent one is the water car, of course. That's back.<br />
<br />
S: The water car. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.<br />
<br />
JR: Fellow named Horvath in Australia for years was selling stock and became a multi-millionaire selling stock in his water car, and the latest claim is that, I think on two ounces of water, they do over a hundred miles, using the water as fuel. What they ''don't'' mention is that they have to break the water down into hydrogen and oxygen, you see, and then re-combine them. Now, the {{w|Electrolysis|electrolysis}} process that separates hydrogen from oxygen in water is very expensive, time-consuming, and energy-consuming.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
JR: They consume about eight times as much energy to split it up into hydrogen and oxygen as they do to run the motor.<br />
<br />
R: There's always a catch.<br />
<br />
JR: Always a catch. I think this engine was also going downhill a lot. But I'm only suspicious of that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. They don't tell you that it's a hybrid, that there's also a gas engine in there. And they say, "and we're working on a water-only engine". Yeah. You keep working on that.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah. Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah; actually, in the news thing that I saw, they said that his car could run all on water, but right now he was just running on water and gas. And then they moved along, and I'm just thinking, "why bother with the gas? Why not just run it on the water if that's so great?" But they don't really think to ask that question.<br />
<br />
S: This is Klein? This is the most recent one we're talking about, right? Klein, or is there someone else?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, there are many of them around.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know.<br />
<br />
JR: The Horvath thing is still going in Australia, and I list a whole number of inventors since 1935 who have come up with the same idea.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and this recent one was featured on Fox News. They gave an ''absolutely'' credulous report of this guy's water car without even a hint of skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: And the announcer even says, as you know if you listen to the broadcast, which is up on the web page<ref name="swift">Randi.org: [http://archive.randi.org/site/jr/2006-05/052606action.html Swift Archive - May 26, 2006]</ref>; you can click on it very easily and hear it in its entirety. But the announcer actually says, "he generates, from this torch, heat which is greater than the surface of the sun." Duh!<br />
<br />
E: Uh. ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
JR: The surface of the sun is at millions of centigrade degrees. This from a hydrogen flame? Not likely.<br />
<br />
S: Not likely.<br />
<br />
E: Uh, no.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I don't know about the torch thing; I have to look into that a little bit more. I've read some skepticism about that technology as well, but at least if you're generating the energy, you can produce a flame from burning hydrogen and oxygen.<br />
<br />
JR: Sure, sure.<br />
<br />
S: That's not anything new.<br />
<br />
JR: It's been done many times. Yes. It's not very practical. They use {{w|Acetylene|acetylene}}. It's much more practical.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But he somehow links that to the next thing, which is the car, which is driving on water.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: As long as you have the gas engine running along, too.<br />
<br />
E: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
JR: You know, that's a very popular subject right now, the price of gasoline being what it is.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, sure.<br />
<br />
JR: So it's natural that it would attract attention.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. This always reminds me of Dennis Lee. Have you ever had a run-in with Dennis Lee, Randi?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, yeah, yeah. I've mentioned him and look on my web page and go to the index or to the search engine and you'll see Dennis Lee in there a lot.<br />
<br />
S: Now this guy's a total con artist. He has, like, 50 or 60 devices that he's always trying to sell, and he puts people through this seminar. It's like two- or three-hour sales pitch, basically, and then the people who stick it out for a few hours and they're sleep-deprived and numbed, then he hits them up with the investment scheme. People are left with the idea of, "Wow, if even one of these crazy ideas is true, then we're going to be millionaires". Of course, they're all totally absurd.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah. And not only that, he invokes Jesus a great deal ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
JR: ... all the way through.<br />
<br />
S: Religion and patriotism and greed all rolled into one. It's a really good con.<br />
<br />
JR: Mostly greed.<br />
<br />
S: Mostly greed. ''(chuckles)'' Yeah. He does couch it in religious and patriotic terms as well. I guess that appeals to some people. It's all just different forms of free energy. You know, if you really could power a car by splitting and then combining water, that's {{w|Perpetual motion|perpetual motion}}, right? That's free energy. If you were getting more energy out of the process than you were putting in to it, you could produce an infinite amount of energy. But I guess that doesn't seem to bother these people. They don't realize the inherent contraction in that, and certainly ... <br />
<br />
JR: I call this "perpetual emotion", you see.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
=== ''The Da Vinci Code'' <small>(51:17)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So is everyone eagerly anticipating the opening of ''The {{w|Da Vinci Code}}''? Have you guys been following the controversies about this movie in the news?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, sure. All week.<br />
<br />
B: I might see it tonight.<br />
<br />
S: Is it open tonight?<br />
<br />
B: I think so.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, yes. Yup.<br />
<br />
S: So it's always interesting about works of fiction like this, when people like the Catholic church, obviously, and other Christians get upset over works of fiction, but they end up just drawing more attention to it with their protests and by making it controversial.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, absolutely. What I'm interested here, the angle that interests me, is that the Church is now claiming, of course, that they have the ''only'' truth, and that ''The Da Vinci Code'' is based on fiction. I don't know about that. Do you?<br />
<br />
S: Well, the Catholic Church certainly claims to have the authoritative version of Christianity. I do think that ''The Da Vinci Code'' is fiction, and I think is less historical. I think there are some aspects of it which are demonstrably historically inaccurate, and of course, they don't care about that. It's a story.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I think, actually, it was more interesting to me than ''The Da Vinci Code'', which is just silliness, getting upset about an obvious work of fiction, was the Judas gospel. The {{w|Gospel of Judas|Gospel according to Judas}}.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Ooh.<br />
<br />
S: Because that's an actual historical document. And that is at least as legitimate as any of the better known Gospels, the Gospels that are quote-unquote "official". I mean, there really is no reason to say the Gospel according to Mark or Matthew or Luke or John has any more historical validity, or even religious validity than this newly revealed Gospel. This was just a ...<br />
<br />
R: And Steve, is the Church accepting the Gospel of Judas? I haven't been really following to see what's been happening with that.<br />
<br />
S: What do you mean by "accepting"? That's it's genuine?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I haven't heard anyone disputing the fact that it's a genuine document that's however, like, 1700 years old, or doubting any of the science behind it. More of what I've been hearing is that they either say that it's heresy. Yeah, sure, it was heresy 1700 years ago and it's still heresy. Or that it's irrelevant. You know, it has nothing to do with the truth, or the official version of what happened. It's just another version which is irrelevant. But I haven't heard anyone dispute its historicity, or the science behind its dating, or the scholarship of its translation, or anything.<br />
<br />
JR: You know, something that people have forgotten here, folks, is the ''{{w|The Protocols of the Elders of Zion|Protocols of Zion}} [sic]'', which Henry Ford was very big on. He actually published the ''Protocols of Zion'' as if it were an authentic old document. And of course, that was put to rest almost immediately, but he continued to publish for years, and he sent copies to libraries all over the world. That was a, really, talk about a spurious document. It was so obviously a spurious document from the very beginning. No scholar would possibly accept it, but it's still circulating around!<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. People just love an excuse to enact their biases, I think.<br />
<br />
JR: Sure, sure. Of course.<br />
<br />
S: There's obviously other precedence for that as well. I mean, the entire church of {{w|Mormonism|Mormon}} is based upon an alleged newly discovered gospel that was delivered to, who was it, {{w|Joseph Smith|John Smith}} ''[sic]'' by the {{w|Angel Moroni|angel Moroni}} on the golden tablets.<br />
<br />
E: Sounds reasonable to me.<br />
<br />
S: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
JR: You know, I closed off this week's commentary on Swift with a comment that was sent into me that hadn't occurred to me. I was talking about strange or funny names, really, convulsively funny names for spirit guides, one of which was {{w|Hilarion}}, which I thought was pretty funny. And someone wrote me and said, "what about Moroni? Can you imagine sitting in a Mormon pew thinking about Moroni for a while?" And then, if you really gave some thought to it, you'd have to be convulsed in laughter. It's true, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, wouldn't that make that the "Moronic Church" then?<br />
<br />
''(all chuckling)''<br />
<br />
JR: You would think so, yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Exactly.<br />
<br />
JR: Church of the Moron.<br />
<br />
S: ''(chuckles)'' The Church of the Morons. It also reminds me of {{w|Billy Meier}}, the Swiss farmer who thinks he's been visited for the last thirty years by aliens. Recently &mdash; I say "recently" &mdash; it's like the last ten years or so, he's really had a cult spring up around him. I thought this guy was long gone. And part of this cult is that he claims that, based upon some kind of vision, he was led to this cave in the Middle East somewhere, and he discovered a document, again, I think this was an alien document, that reveals the hidden truth about everything. "Here's the real ultimate truth of reality." He translated it, and then of course, promptly lost the original, so there's no original.<br />
<br />
E: Ohhh.<br />
<br />
JR: Pity. What a pity.<br />
<br />
B: What are the odds?<br />
<br />
S: But we do have his translation of it. And now, this is like the gospel of Billy Meier; you know, the core text of his cult. So this is a common theme that keeps cropping up: find some hidden text or miraculously-revealed text, lose the originals, and then there you go. You have the basis for a new religion.<br />
<br />
JR: Ah, well.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
JR: We're faced with this sort of thing every day, folks, and we have to fight it, and we have to keep on publicizing the fact that it is BS, after the famous Penn and Teller program, of course, and that if we don't do something about it, we are in for a dark age.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's true, and we obviously all think this is fun. That's part of why we do it. We also think it's very important. I think all of us feel, to some extent, this is where our skill and interests lie. I'm sure you feel the same way. But you do feel like you're on a treadmill, because &mdash; I'm sure you feel similar to when you're doing your cardiac exercises, that you're working feverishly but you're not really going anywhere. We're actually just ...<br />
<br />
JR: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: It feels like we're working awfully hard just to stand still with all of this.<br />
<br />
E: How's the expression go? "Holding the ocean back with a broom", I believe it is.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, something like that. One fellow sent me a great metaphor some years ago. I've never forgotten. He said, "what you're doing, Mr. Randi, is like trying to shovel water uphill."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
JR: Which is great, because paddling water in a shovel, of course, is useless, and shoveling it uphill, you know... ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
=== Crisis of Faith <small>(57:55)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well, we're almost out of time, so let me, on that line, let me ask you: have you ever had a crisis of faith, where you felt, "Why am I wasting my time with all of this? These people are hopeless." Again, you have the unsinkable rubber duckies, the claims that never go away. The believers will always be there. Did you ever have a moment where, in your darkest hour, you thought it was all not worthwhile?<br />
<br />
JR: Well, just once. You know, {{w|Sophia Loren}} has a home about eleven miles in a straight line &mdash; I measured it on the map to be sure &mdash; from where I live at the moment. And she doesn't do that with Oil of Olay. That's witchcraft,.no question about it. How she looks that good at that age, that is supernatural, and I may have to pay over the money. I really may have to. And please don't tell Sophia that. She doesn't know that I have a fixation on her, too.<br />
<br />
R: This is just between us.<br />
<br />
S: But you need some more direct proof, right? Need some more eyewitness proof?<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, yes, exactly. And of course, I'm waiting for the night, you know &mdash; it's sort of my fantasy that I fell asleep in front of the TV, found it was raining outside. "Oh, it's one o'clock in the morning. My goodness," get up, stretch, go to the door and decide to head in, and suddenly I hear ''(four taps)'' on the door and I'd say, "oh, who could that be at this hour? It's one o'clock in the morning." I throw open the door, and there is Sophia, standing there with an overnight bag in her hand, soaking wet, saying to me, "I have no place to go."<br />
<br />
''(laughing)''<br />
<br />
JR: This, admittedly, is a fantasy, but please don't tell Sophia, because she might be offended by this.<br />
<br />
B: I don't think she listens to our podcast.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, sure she does. Of course she does.<br />
<br />
''(laughing)''<br />
<br />
JR: Every intelligent person does.<br />
<br />
R: Course.<br />
<br />
=== JREF Podcast <small>(59:39)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Speaking of the podcast, actually, when we had interviewed you last time, and of course this was before your illness, you had mentioned that you and the JREF were going to start a weekly podcast in February, and then, of course, your illness intervened. And I noticed that you haven't done that yet. Do you still plan to do your own podcast?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, when we get caught up a little better than we are now. I'm still handling email from February and trying to get rid of that. But it's coming along slowly. Yes, we will go to the podcast. I really want to do that. It's the way to go now, and it's not all that hard to do, and it would bring us a much wider audience. And so we'll go into competition with you, OK?<br />
<br />
S: Right. Welcome competition.<br />
<br />
R: I look forward to it.<br />
<br />
S: But I guess until then, people will just have to listen to you on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
JR: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: So Randi, thanks again for being on the Skeptics' Guide. It's always a pleasure talking with you.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, thanks, Randi.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, you're very welcome. Very welcome, all of you. Thank you for inviting me. I feel flattered that I'm asked to spend an hour with you on the air, as they say in the trade, and I used to do it for five hours a night, five nights a week on WOR-AM and -FM, New York.<br />
<br />
E: Great station.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes indeed. But we used to reach 38 states at that time, I think. But this podcast, we're probably reaching more than 38 states and probably all over the world. Isn't that wonderful?<br />
<br />
E: You bet.<br />
<br />
S: We do have listeners who email us from all over the world about our podcast.<br />
<br />
JR: Glad to hear it.<br />
<br />
S: So that's true; that's the wonder of the Internet.<br />
<br />
JR: It is indeed.<br />
<br />
S: But thanks again. Keep up the good work. I'm sure we'll still be in touch and hopefully we'll have you on the show again in the future.<br />
<br />
JR: OK. So for the moment, goodbye, all.<br />
<br />
S: Take care.<br />
<br />
R: Bye, Randi.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Randi.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it is always great to have James Randi on the Skeptics' Guide, and actually, he is our first return guest. He's the first guest that we've had twice on the show.<br />
<br />
E: That's fitting. I find that very fitting.<br />
<br />
B: That is a fast hour.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, wow.<br />
<br />
S: It does go by very quickly.<br />
<br />
B: It felt like fifteen minutes.<br />
<br />
S: He's very entertaining and fun to talk to. And hopefully we'll have him on again many times for many years. Hopefully he'll be around for a long time. We'll have him on the show again.<br />
<br />
E: That'd be great.<br />
<br />
S: Well, guys, thanks for joining me.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you, Steve.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Steve.<br />
<br />
B: Good show.<br />
<br />
S: Always a good time.<br />
<br />
E: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References == <br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}<br />
<br />
{{Page categories<br />
|Interview = y <!-- Randi Interview --><br />
|Alternative Medicine = y <!-- Faith healers --><br />
|Cons, Scams & Hoaxes = y <!-- Faith healers, water car --><br />
|Legal Issues & Regulations = y <!-- Licensing pseudoscience --><br />
|Entertainment = y <!-- Da Vinci Code --><br />
|Paranormal = y <!-- Bermuda Triangle --><br />
|Religion & Faith = y <!-- Faith healers, Da Vinci Code --><br />
|Science & the Media = y <!-- Scientific American --><br />
|Technology = y <!-- Water car --><br />
}}</div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_44&diff=9948SGU Episode 442015-06-22T21:22:55Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
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|date = 2015-06-22<br />
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<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Friday, May 19, 2006. This is your host, Steven Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me today are Rebecca Watson...<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Bob Novella...<br />
<br />
B: Happy Randi day.<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Likewise.<br />
<br />
S: And what Bob and Evan are referring to is the fact that coming up very shortly, we have our second interview with James Randi, so we'll get to that very quickly. First, just a couple of quick news items.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Human-Monkey Love <small>(00:49)</small>===<br />
* [http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060515/full/news060515-10.html Chimpanzee and Human Ancestors May Have Interbred]<br />
<br />
=== Chinese Mirage <small>(05:42)</small>===<br />
* [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2006-05/08/content_583947.htm Rare Mirage Appears in Penglai]<br />
<br />
== Interview with James Randi <small>(09:38)</small>==<br />
* [http://www.randi.org randi.org]<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is James Randi. Randi, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
JR: A pleasure to be here.<br />
<br />
S: Now, Randi needs no introduction, but I'm gonna introduce him anyway. He is a renowned skeptical investigator and educator, began his career as a professional magician performing under the name of "The Amazing Randi", and now he runs the James Randi Educational Foundation, and you can visit his website at www.randi.org. The JREF also administers the famous {{w|One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge|Million Dollar Psychic Challenge}}, which we spoke about extensively on Randi's last visit to The Skeptics' Guide. Randi also has published numerous books, including ''The Faith Healers'', ''The Mask of Nostradamus'', ''Flim-Flam'', and many others, with more in the works. So, again, Randi, welcome back to The Skeptics' Guide; it's always a pleasure speaking with you.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, it's good to be here, but I must say, you don't spell my name, you see. Many people try to reach me on www dot randy, R-A-N-D-Y, which is not correct; it's R-A-N-D-I.<br />
<br />
S: OK. ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
R: It's a good point.<br />
<br />
S: So, just to get it out of the way, since we spoke to you last time, you've had some health problems, and I know that all of your fans want to hear how you're doing.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, doing very well; I must say I just came back from the gym workout that I do three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the local hospital. I have pedaled my way around the world at least a couple of times without moving an inch, and I've rowed myself across the Atlantic Ocean without moving. It's quite effective, I must say. All kinds of whirly-gig equipment there, and constant blood pressure and heart-rate monitoring. It's very thorough and I'm sort of halfway through that three-month session. Now&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: It's basically cardiac rehab; is that what you're doing?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah. Mm-hmm.<br />
<br />
S: And what happened, exactly?<br />
<br />
JR: Well, what happened. Let's go back to the beginning. I was born at the age of&mdash;<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: At a very early age. Let's say that. 1928, to be exact. Very good year. Yes, I... right after TAM 4, after all the festivities had wound up and everything, I came back to Florida here, and couple of days after that, I felt a tightness in my chest, which I recognized, having had heart problems before, {{w|Angina pectoris|anginas}}, and I went out to the local hospital, collapsed at the hospital, went into emergency, and spent a few weeks under morphine. Morphine is my great friend; it's my new friend altogether. And woke up having had a double bypass, which rather slows you down, to say the least. But it was very highly successful. There were complications; I had to have my gall bladder out three days after the bypass, which is relatively minor. But they did punch a few holes in me. As I said on the web page not too long ago, when I got a first good look at my chest in the mirror, I found that I looked like a piece of parchment that Indiana Jones might have taken while searching for the lost treasure of Babylon. Little Xs all over it, and interesting incision which starts behind my left knee and goes up to my abdomen. I don't know how they had to go all that way&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's where they harvested the vein, I guess, apparently.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, they harvested the vein. Yes.<br />
<br />
R: They took the scenic route.<br />
<br />
JR: I could have given them a handful.<br />
<br />
S: But the angina's cleared up; your symptoms have cleared up and you're doing well, it sounds like.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh yeah. No, I'm coming along very well. I've got certain blood pressure things that I've gotta look at, and I'm on minor medication; only four pills a day, and one of the fellows at the gym was telling me today he takes sixteen pills a day, so I feel only one quarter as bad as he does.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)'' Right. Let me ask you a question: while you were in the hospital during this entire experience, were you ever offered any alternative medicine modality, such as prayer or therapeutic touch or aromatherapy or anything like that?<br />
<br />
JR: Well, judging from the recent reports on how badly prayer fails, I'm very grateful to the millions upon millions of people all around the world who didn't pray for me&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: ''(laughs)'' It worked.<br />
<br />
JR: &mdash;because that obviously helped me somewhat.<br />
<br />
S: I did not pray for you, so you're welcome.<br />
<br />
JR: There you go. Thank you very much!<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: Now, Linda&mdash;Linda in our office here, the indefatigable Linda&mdash;I mean, she is&mdash;there's no way of tiring this woman&mdash;she wanted to pull a little bit of a gag, but some friends deterred her from doing&mdash;she wanted to have a&mdash;when I woke up, on one of those occasions in the hospital, they wanted to have a nurse doing {{w|Reiki|reiki}} on me.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: Or someone dressed as a nurse, at least. And they sort of drew the line at that; said no, I would probably rise from my bed of pain with the tubes down my throat and everything else and all the electrodes attached and strangle her, you know?<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
S: Now, for the listeners, reiki is just a Japanese form of therapeutic touch, where they manipulate your energy field.<br />
<br />
JR: ''(sarcastically)'' Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
S: I'm sad to say that some nurses at Yale are enamored of reiki; they offered it to me a couple of times.<br />
<br />
E: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: I declined, of course.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, are you sure that's what they were offering you when they asked if you wanted therapeutic touch?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, oh, I never thought of that.<br />
<br />
S: Maybe I should have reconsidered.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
S: I'll have to follow up and find out. So, yeah; it's terrible that in mainstream American hospitals there's this sort of creeping pseudoscience that is justified by the hospitals on the basis that, "well, this is what our patients want, so why shouldn't we give it to them?" And it's good marketing. You know?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, how about blood-letting? If I go in there and I want to be bled, you know, I wonder if they would do that?<br />
<br />
R: Well, they should have respect for your beliefs.<br />
<br />
E: Or have your {{w|Humorism|humors}} balanced.<br />
<br />
S: If they could bill you for it, they probably would do it.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, that's my good humor and my bad humor.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
=== Faith Healers <small>(15:53)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now, we didn't talk last time about one of your favorite topics&mdash;that's faith healing, and I notice in your most recent issue of "Swift" online, which is basically your online newsletter on the R-A-N-D-I.org website, you talk about&mdash;or it might have been the last issue, that you talk about your recent evaluation of a faith healer.<br />
<br />
JR: What was his name?<br />
<br />
S: I think it was... Benny Hinn! {{w|Benny Hinn}}.<br />
<br />
JR: Benny Hinn. Benny Hinn. Yes, Benny Hinn, the fellow who is probably the leading figure in faith healing these days, who got his comeuppance a few times. Certainly in Denmark, he got his comeuppance; they revealed his methodology and interviewed a number of people he had apparently healed who had turned out not to be healed. Oh, great surprise right there. But Benny Hinn was not around at the time I wrote my book ''The Faith Healers'', so he didn't even get mentioned in there. As a matter of fact, I sort of put Benny Hinn in business because I put out of business several of the major faith healers, like {{w|Peter Popoff}}, for example. And Benny Hinn stepped into that void. He picked up everybody that had abandoned Popoff, because these people never abandon faith healing, they simply go to a different faith healer.<br />
<br />
B: Isn't Popoff doing the rounds again?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh yeah. No, he's very active again. Yeah. He's very active; he changed the name of his ministry from Peter Popoff Ministries to People United for Christ, and how can we fight that?<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
R: No, everybody loves Christ. I think.<br />
<br />
E: Or they should.<br />
<br />
R: And Ernie&mdash;{{w|Ernie Angley}} is back as well, Randi; we talked about that I think a few weeks ago.<br />
<br />
JR: ''(exaggerated)'' Praise Jay-sus!<br />
<br />
R: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
JR: You know, I attended, along with {{w|Paul Kurtz}} and Barry Carr years ago, I actually went out to Akron, Ohio and I sat in the front row of one of the meetings that he held in the church there; his church. Believe me, the rugs were as thick as the lawn on the best golf course. I think that rug had to be mowed twice a week. It was a luxuriously&mdash;he had a ''wonderful'' orchestra and a ''superb'' choir, and then this awful-looking man who looks like he's really been stuffed into a silk shirt. And he's wearing corsets; you can tell that he's wearing corsets of some kind to hold it all in.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, wow.<br />
<br />
R: And doesn't he have&mdash;does he have a thick, luxurious rug somewhere else other than his floor? ''(giggles)''<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, that&mdash;believe me, that rug&mdash;what I said to Kurtz was, and Kurtz kept on shushing me; you know, Kurtz was like that&mdash;I told him, I said, "hey, if he took that thing off, threw it on the floor and said, 'be healed', it would walk up&mdash;it would run away and it would probably reproduce itself in the corner." That is the worst-looking rug; he never turns his head in a hurry, because he may leave the rug behind, you see.<br />
<br />
R: Right. Can't go out in a stiff wind.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, it's awful looking. Yeah. So, anyway, we visited Ernest Angley.<br />
<br />
S: Now, getting back to Benny Hinn, you said... so what is his shtick? What are his methods?<br />
<br />
JR: It's the same old thing. Same old thing. As a matter of fact, we did... my first opportunity to really talk about it&mdash;BBC called me and asked me if I would go up to Toronto and get in disguise appropriately as Adam Gerson, which means wearing a red wig, dyeing my beard temporarily red, and putting in black contact lenses, which I did. I went up to Toronto, and they gave me all kinds of strange identification to hang around my neck&mdash;so many cards that none of the guards even looked at me, 'cause I was festooned with all kinds of ID. And here I was, in Toronto, at the... Madison Square&mdash;not Madison Square, pardon me&mdash;Maple Leaf Gardens&mdash;I'm sorry; wrong city. And&mdash;which is a ''huge'' place&mdash;and the place was ''jammed'' to the ceiling; there was no room for anybody. They had people up and down the aisles and they had a crowd out on the street estimated at over 1500 people who couldn't get in, and they were just clamoring at the outside doors. So it was a great success for Benny Hinn.<br />
<br />
But, we caught Benny Hinn. We got him really good. We got into the counting area, with the money, with the coin sorters, and they were sorting the checks and putting them into big boxes and such. And the cash and everything else. We got into the counting area; we even interviewed some of the people there, and they gave away an awful lot of secrets. We found them rehearsing the audience that was coming up on stage; rehearsing them on the stairs leading up to where the video cameras were on how to fall down, and that they would be protected and such as they fell; they would have catchers right there, and they even rehearsed them, right on the stairway leading up to the stage. And we found there was a roped-off area on the main floor at the back where all wheelchairs were kept, especially if they were wheelchairs that were customized. That means that this person doesn't rise from that chair under any circumstances, and they kept all those people back there.<br />
<br />
And right in the middle of the whole thing, a young couple who had a child in their arms; a child about, I'd say eight to ten; very hard to say; dressed in an exercise suit. The child was drooling and crying out&mdash;I don't know what the problem was, but it was an obvious neurological difficulty. And they rushed right through the security guards, pushed them aside bodily, and rushed up and got on the stage. And Benny Hinn invited them up, naturally. Now there was nothing being broadcast live; this was all being videotaped for future use, and I can assure that section of the tape did not hit the airwaves.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
JR: Later on. But they broke right through; they got up on the stage, and the husband yelled at Benny Hinn; he said, "we followed you through four or five cities now, and we're trying to get on the stage and they wouldn't let us on the stage. I want you to heal my son!" And Benny Hinn was very cool; he took the kid in his arms and he hushed the audience and he looks heavenwards, with the light on him appropriately, of course, and he said something to the effect, "Sweet Jesus, heal this child, in your own time. Heal him now, if you wish, or tomorrow, or next week. Whenever you wish, Good Lord", you know, that kind of thing.<br />
<br />
E: Outrageous.<br />
<br />
JR: "Because all the wisdom is in your hands." And then he gave the child back, still screaming and drooling, to the parents. Two security guards hustled them offstage, and literally dragged them down the stairs&mdash;they were trying not to go, so they were being led away willy-nilly, which is an interesting expression, not many people know the meaning of; it means "willing or not willing"&mdash;and they got them down into the aisle. And we saw them, and we ''videotaped'' them being dragged down the hall and being pushed out of the pad-locked doors into the street and the door slammed after them. Meanwhile, Hinn was singing away and the orchestra started up and all this kind of thing. That was never used on the BBC program because Benny Hinn's lawyers reminded the BBC that they had lawyers up the gazoo; they were all over the place, and he had better be very careful&mdash;they had better be very careful if they tried to sue him. So they didn't and the program was completely whitewashed and it finally got on the air but it was nothing. Absolutely nothing.<br />
<br />
S: Really? So the BBC News let themselves be intimidated by a huckster like that?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, this was not the BBC News; this was a BBC program of some kind or other. I've forgotten; I've got it in my videotape library, but it's hard to look that sort of thing up because you grit your teeth a lot while you're watching the thing. But Hinn was seated in front of the camera, very calmly; he knew that he had the thing under control and that they were not going to use any of that footage.<br />
<br />
S: That's terrible. And of course, the desperate parents; I mean, you know, obviously if you have a child who's neurologically devastated, that is... it is an incredibly devastating thing, so you could understand the parents' desperation. And they were just given the bum's rush, because he knew that he couldn't heal this&mdash;<br />
<br />
JR: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: &mdash;gave the appearance of healing them.<br />
<br />
JR: That's right. He didn't want anything like that happening. Now, we actually went across the street after this event and we sat in a coffee shop across the street. This was about 20 minutes before the crowd let out. We had to fight our way through the people who were blocking traffic on the street trying to get in. And we went to the coffee place across the street, sat down at the back, and we happened to sit right beside a table where there was a... um... rather large lady seated there with tears streaming down her face and a handkerchief to her eyes, and she was being talked to by her feminine companion there, and we overheard the conversation. And she was saying, "but I've followed him over 11 cities; all over the United States and Canada. I don't have any more money. I can't get up on the stage. And we need healing. We need healing" and she was sobbing away. And her woman friend took her by the hand and said, "but dear, you haven't given everything that you have, have you? Because he said that God wants you to give ''everything'', as far as you possibly can. You've still got the CDs; you've still got those investments. You've really gotta reach deeper, dear."<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
JR: This was so incr&mdash;and the woman was saying, "But I can't; I haven't anything to leave the children. I've cashed in the CDs&mdash;" and she was going on and on. We just moved our table; we couldn't take it any longer.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, my God.<br />
<br />
S: Heartless, heartless.<br />
<br />
E: Evil.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, evil. It's not just heartless; it's evil.<br />
<br />
S: It is.<br />
<br />
R: How do you&mdash;do you think that there's any way to save people from that kind of ignorance?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, educate them. But they have to be educated before they go there; before they fall into this trap of believing this crap. They have to be educated&mdash;education&mdash;hey, that's why I call it the James Randi Educational Foundation; we ''try'' to be educational, if we possibly can. Educating people is not all that easy, be we sure as hell try.<br />
<br />
S: And you're absolutely right; you do have to get to people before they fall prey, because once they're a true believer; once they're in the clutches, the psychological mechanisms are just too powerful&mdash;<br />
<br />
JR: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: It's very hard for people to admit that level&mdash;that they've been duped to that degree.<br />
<br />
JR: Right. And I just answered somebody on e-mail yesterday; the usual thing, which I really hate to put out&mdash;his wife has completely fallen for a faith healer and has reached into the bank account and pretty well stripped that out to send all this money off to him. And the man said, "how do I convince her of it?" He said, "I led her to your page and she just kept on shaking her head and turning away from it and saying, 'no, that's the Devil at work; that's the Devil at work.'" And I just told him, I said, "frankly, I think you should give up. There is no way that you can convince the true believer. The true believer will ignore all evidence to the contrary because it's comforting to believe what he or she chooses to believe. And she's going to have to learn on her own, but I don't think there's anything you can do." I ''hate'' to tell people. That's ridiculous. There should be a way, but I don't know what the way is. I really don't.<br />
<br />
B: The first thing that he should do, I believe, is limit&mdash;is prevent any access of&mdash;prevent her from accessing all of their finances.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, just hide the money.<br />
<br />
B: I mean, oh my God, I would make sure she couldn't get a dime unless I was involved. That'd be the first thing I would do.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, well, what can you do? What can you do?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I mean, protecting yourself is easier than protecting your loved one.<br />
<br />
E: You can't cure it; you can only put in blocks and preventative measures as best as possible.<br />
<br />
JR: Absolutely right.<br />
<br />
=== Patenting/Licensing Pseudoscience <small>(27:48)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, Randi, to change topics a little bit, you've also written recently about the federal patent office, the {{w|United States Patent and Trademark Office|U.S. Patent Office}}. This is an issue that crops up now and again. They are in the habit of granting patents to so-called inventions that are totally pseudoscientific. And you've had some entries on your&mdash;on Swift recently about that as well.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, I have, and I perhaps came down pretty hard on the U.S. Patent Office. I now get people within the Patent Office are writing me, saying, "well, we just don't have the personnel." ''Why don't you have the personnel?'' I'm paying taxes for it. I would like you to have the personnel, please. Why make excuses like this? I don't think that's a valid excuse at all. Get the people in there, if you have so many inventions pouring in there. Of course, there's also this business of being politically correct; you don't want to really refuse anybody. And one of the habits that they have, apparently, is just to grant a patent just to shut somebody up. That's not the purpose of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Not at all. I object strongly to this, to get rid of people by simply giving them a patent. Because that gives them the authority&mdash;a false authority, but the apparent authority, that this thing has been ''approved'' by the U.S. government, by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. "They wouldn't give it a patent if it weren't the real thing." Oh, get outta here.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: That's right, and we see that in licensing and regulation in general, that the government sees regulation, whether it's licensing or giving a patent or whatever, as a means of regulating an industry and they do not see it, necessarily, as endorsement of legitimacy, any kind of, like, scientific validity. Unfortunately, the public does see it as a stamp of scientific legitimacy.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: So the same is true, for example, when you license homeopaths and license acupuncturists.<br />
<br />
JR: Or even psychics.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or whatever, license psychics; I mean, there's really no end to it. And then the psychic or the homeopath or whatever can say that "I'm a licensed practitioner; licensed by the state; I've passed some kind of regulation, therefore there must be some legitimacy to it". But that assumption is completely false. And the same holds true of the patent office. The makers of crank and fraudulent devices prominently display the fact that their technology is patented. The patent office says that there's two criteria that you need to have in order to be patented: your invention has to be new; there's gotta be something novel about it, and it cannot be so obvious that, you know... an obvious application or extension of existing technology; there's gotta be something innovative about it. But that's it. They do not have the criteria that it has to work, or even theoretically be able to work.<br />
<br />
E: Do they even hold fast to that second criteria? I would question that.<br />
<br />
R: Well, that's just it; they're overloaded with so many patents that things slip through the cracks, and they get to the point where&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Well, they're&mdash;being obvious is a judgment call, so that's very hard to quantify; you know, obvious-ness. So, you know, I think they might try to make sure that it's not an obvious application, but... it's a judgment call.<br />
<br />
E: But the peanut butter and jelly sandwich? I mean, you know, that's pretty obvious to me.<br />
<br />
JR: Yep, {{w|Sealed crustless sandwich|that has been patented}}, and I think it's... isn't it {{w|Dunkin' Donuts}} that owns it now? I think it's Dunkin' Donuts. ''(voices overlapping)'' I made one the other day in my home but I had to close the curtains on the window there, to eat it in silence, and I didn't answer the phone during that time, in case somebody was spying on me. Yes.<br />
<br />
B: I owe them lots of royalties, I guess.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ''(chuckles)'' Well, there is... there's a potential solution, if you check out the most recent issue of Swift, a very helpful young woman wrote in to Randi about... ''(chuckles)'' there's a peer review process that they're looking into where the applications would be&mdash;basically, they would go through, you know, a peer-review process before they hit the actual patent application office. And that could really help cut down on the number of crap applications that make it through.<br />
<br />
JR: That's probably true, Rebecca, but one point I must make here, that {{w|Bob Butterworth|Butterworth}}&mdash;that was his name, he was the former Attorney General of the state of Florida&mdash;what I wrote to him, and I used to lecture for his <!-- Not sure what he's saying here --> safe in law squad, the gypsy contingent people there, on the latest scams that these people were pulling. I would go out to Tallahassee once a year and lecture for his group. I haven't been invited since; I don't know why. And he said&mdash;when I suggested that they license psychics, but that the psychics had to pass a written test and a practical test of what they claimed they could do. And he said, "oh no, that wouldn't work because it's impossible to test psychics." Get outta here!<br />
<br />
R: Ugh.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
JR: You can test counterfeit money; you can test a doctor, a plumber, a masseur; you can... any of these people you can test; you can find out if they know what they're talking about. But he seemed... what he did was reflecting what the psychics told him. "Oh no, we can't be tested." "Oh really? OK, I'll tell Mr. Randi that then."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: Incredible.<br />
<br />
S: Which is true of these things in general, that the profession being regulated gets to decide what the criteria are for licensure. So psychics get to decide what you need to have to be licensed as a psychic.<br />
<br />
JR: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: It just becomes a means of protecting a monopoly in the end.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, indeed, and that's very dangerous. I'm all for psychics being licensed, but I want to know that they will pass certain tests. And of course, they don't like that at all.<br />
<br />
S: Right, 'cause none of them could pass it.<br />
<br />
JR: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: If it were the kind of test that would be meaningful, you know. It certainly wouldn't be unreasonable to require that somebody prove that they have psychic ability before they are licensed by the state to sell their services to the public.<br />
<br />
JR: Right. Services or a product.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. Services or product. That's right.<br />
<br />
=== The Amaz!ng Meeting 4 <small>(34:28)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So... what's in store for [http://www.amazingmeeting.com The Amaz!ng Meeting] next year coming up? Who do you have lined up for that?<br />
<br />
JR: Well, you know, we were very late with it because of my illness, and Linda and Jeff Wagg have done sterling efforts, and Hal Bidlack, have been getting people together, and quite frankly, I'm not too aware... I spoke to ''Scientific American''&mdash;to {{w|John Rennie (editor)|John Rennie}} at ''Scientific American'' the other day, and he's trying to put us in touch with {{w|Alan Alda}}. But Alan Alda has now taken on a couple of more series, apparently, and&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: Oh, wow.<br />
<br />
JR: &mdash;is very, very busy. He&mdash;''Scientific American''&mdash;what is it&mdash;''{{w|Scientific American Frontiers|Frontiers}}'', I think it was called&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: &mdash;program is now finished... for ''Scientific American'', as a broadcast. They'll probably be repeating the shows, I would hope. But Alan Alda is very, very busy now, and I don't know whether we can depend on getting him, but I am asking John Rennie, the editor of ''Scientific American''&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: He's great.<br />
<br />
E: He is great.<br />
<br />
JR: &mdash;after all, the next Amaz!ng Meeting will be on science and the media. And that certainly is his forte. ''Scientific American'', I must tell you, in my opinion, is the only media bulwark that we have, aside from PBS&mdash;''NOVA'' and similar programs&mdash;the only bulwark we have against the nonsense. It's the only official one we have.<br />
<br />
S: That's true, and he's spoken for our group, and I've talked to him about this, that when it comes to mainstream science journals, ''Scientific American'' is the only one that sees it as part of its mission confronting pseudoscience, or educating the public about pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
JR: Indeed.<br />
<br />
S: Other science journals either pander, like ''Discover'' magazine, which is another sort of popularist magazine, at times even panders to pseudoscience, or they just see it as not part of their job; they just completely ignore the topic... completely.<br />
<br />
JR: I must tell you, in passing, that {{w|Michael Shermer}} does this wonderful column for ''Scientific American'', of course&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: We're all very grateful for that. I almost got that contract, though. As a matter of fact, John Rennie had consulted with me, and it was pretty well set that I was going to do the "Skeptical American" in ''Scientific American''. And it fell through at the last minute when they sold the whole shebang, all of ''Scientific American'', to a German publisher. And the German publisher issued new rules saying that only Ph.Ds could write articles that would be published in ''Scientific American''.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, my God. Really?<br />
<br />
JR: Which would have left ''Scientific American'' without {{w|Martin Gardner}}; he has a couple of Ph.Ds, but they're not in science.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, wow.<br />
<br />
JR: And they're not even in mathematics. So he would've been left out. They had to have a Ph.D in that specialty before they could write&mdash;Now this is a German attitude, you know; a very correct German attitude, you know. ''(German accent)'' You vill do ''this''.<br />
<br />
''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
JR: But, nonetheless, they had to go along with it, and so I lost out on that. But I'm ''so'' glad that Shermer was able to get in there, because of course, he has the degrees that are essential&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: He does do a very good job with it, too.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, he does.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. It's an excellent column. "Skeptic" is just simply the name of the column.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Randi, getting back momentarily to TAM 4, I heard a rumor that TAM 4 was going to take place in Manhattan. Is that true?<br />
<br />
JR: ''(laughs)'' No, it's going to take place in Las Vegas again. I say "unfortunately" to a certain extent, 'cause I can't stand Las Vegas. I spoke to {{w|John Stossel}} the other day; I've been trying to talk him into doing it. He's doing Shermer's next... at the beginning of June, and I'm very happy that he is, but he won't go to Las Vegas. He just says he despises the place. Frankly, I'm very uneasy when I'm there, too, because I see around me, all of them are losers!<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: All of this luxury that they paid for; they're trying to get their money back somehow. And I find it rather sad. I'm depressed by the place.<br />
<br />
R: {{w|Murray Gell-Mann}} went on a huge rant at TAM 4 about Vegas; it was pretty funny. He had a point.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, I probably agree with him; I probably do.<br />
<br />
S: That's {{w|Penn and Teller}}'s home, right?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is part of the reason for it, of course. ''(clears throat)''<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: And it's really cheap, which is nice.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, yeah; indeed.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it's cheap because they want to get people there to gamble.<br />
<br />
R/E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So the plane fares and hotels are cheap.<br />
<br />
R: Which is what&mdash;it kind of makes me laugh, because they give us these great deals to have, you know, 800 skeptics come out and not gamble.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
R: Suckers.<br />
<br />
JR: I think they lose on our group.<br />
<br />
R: They do.<br />
<br />
JR: You know, the wonderful thing is, when you talk to the casino, they say, "well, if you get 150 people, this is what things will cost you;" they give you a whole price list. They say, "if you have 300, however, you get the auditorium for free", or you get some sort of a thing. By the time you get up to the 800-and-something that we had this last time, pretty well everything's free. It's wonderful. And we get a cut on the room rates and all those things. It's just wonderful. Because they want to get bodies in there. Warm bodies with wallets. Or purses.<br />
<br />
E: Yep, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: Well, I certainly understand the practical reasons for having it there. It would be nice to have it on the east coast at some point in time, but.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, we're entertaining the idea of doing it in the U.K. because we just got a very comprehensive... survey that was done by an agency over there who are volunteering to work for us, which is very wonderful and we're very grateful for it. They did an extensive survey of whether or not it would go well in the U.K. and the answer's a resounding yes. We can draw people from all over Europe and quite some distance into Europe as well as all of England, of course. And we could probably get a few over from America at the same time. I think that the following year, we will probably seriously think about doing it in probably either in Cambridge or in London itself.<br />
<br />
R: My only fear with that is that one of my favorite things about TAM is meeting all of the different international people, and most recently I met a ton of really cool people from England, and I'm afraid that if they get their own, then they're not going to come to Vegas next year.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, that's possible; yeah. We've got to think of all these possibilities. The logistics of it are really quite complicated.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Would this be your first meeting in Europe?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, yeah; for TAM, certainly. All the TAMs&mdash;the first one took place right here in Florida. And that was attractive enough, but... what did we get; 75 people or something like that?<br />
<br />
''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
S: Really.<br />
<br />
JR: Look at where we are now; we're over 800 people. Damn, that's&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: And you've also got the cruise coming up, right?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, the cruise. The cruise is very well subscribed to. As a matter of fact, I don't know that we actually have any room for any more. I think we might have already filled the berths, as they say.<br />
<br />
R/E: Wow.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: This is a cruise through the {{w|Bermuda Triangle}}.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, but a lot of people are scared, you know.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
JR: They don't want to go. ''(indistinct)'' Oh, jeez, right through the Bermuda Triangle. But they've agreed to be wrapped in bandages and put in cold storage while we're in the Triangle itself.<br />
<br />
E: As long as you mention the Triangle, I was reading through ''Flim-Flam'' again, and you have a chapter in there about the Bermuda Triangle. And you give a wonderful map about reported, you know, disappearances that are attributable to the Bermuda Triangle, and one of them is actually, like, in the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of California, or something like that. I got a kick out of that.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, one up in Newfoundland. But they were all attributed to the Bermuda Triangle.<br />
<br />
E: Now ''that's'' a triangle.<br />
<br />
JR: The one that happened in Newfoundland is very interesting. The plane had been to Miami and was flying to Newfoundland, and right off the coast of Newfoundland it suddenly exploded. In mid-air. This was a military plane, and there's pretty good reason for having exploded, when you know the circumstances. The point is, however, that it had only been to Miami, and was now off the coast of Newfoundland, and that was enough to make it explode. So it's included as one of the Bermuda Triangle&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: That just shows the power of the Triangle, Randi.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, yes, indeed. Yes.<br />
<br />
R: It's incredible.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, I'm glad you brought some sanity to me, there.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I mean, you can't even think about it while you're on a boat anywhere in the world or you might sink.<br />
<br />
JR: Very true. Very true.<br />
<br />
S: The boat you're on may have been through the Bermuda Triangle at some time in the past.<br />
<br />
JR: There you go. Well, you know, I only have done one other cruise in my whole life, and that was to replace a magician friend of mine when I was living in New Jersey. He called me in desperation and he was quite ill and he said, "you have to substitute for me". So I call the U.S. Rotter&mdash;the S.S.&mdash;S.S. or U.S.? I don't know&mdash;Rotterdam, which is a considerably smaller ship than the one we'll be on on the cruise, and I offered my services and they accepted because they were rather desperate, I guess. In any case, I did a show onboard the ship. The average age of the passengers was deceased.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: Almost everybody had a walker; they looked like living T.V. antennas when they walked around, you know? With all the aluminum rods sticking out in all directions. But... They didn't know what I was doing. I was out there doing my magic act that I've done for decades and such, and you would hear things like, "Morrie, what's he doing? What's his name? What did he say?" You know.<br />
<br />
R: "Speak up."<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, and "I don't know, Ruth. I don't know, Ruth. It's amazing something. I don't know." And they didn't know who I was; they didn't care. It was&mdash;and the cruise director came to me after and he said, "take the money and run." He says, "don't worry; ''everybody'' fails on this particular cruise. Nobody knows what's happening in the audience. They just want to get on their canes and get out of there, you know?" So I took the money and ran. But I was at the purser's desk, sending a message of some kind back to the mainland, and a lady came along; she was looking at the map that they had there with a pin showing where you are at the moment, you see. And she looked and she says, ''(Yiddish accent)'' "Hey, ve're in the Bermuda Triangle! Vat's dis? I'm gonna die!" She was terrified! She was running around with her hands over her head saying, "we're in the Bermuda Triangle!" She thought she was doomed right there. I didn't do much to try to calm her down. I took her over to the rail to see if she could lean over. "Oh, you can&mdash;oh, there you&mdash;" That was beautiful. Splash.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, by the way, I've got something going up&mdash;I'll give you this little heads-up here. I've got a thing which I just sent off to {{w|Jay Leno}} for his funny headlines; you know? And I'm putting it up on the web page<ref name="swift">Randi.org: [http://archive.randi.org/site/jr/2006-05/052606action.html Swift Archive - May 26, 2006]</ref>. Not this week; next week. It's a full-page advertisement showing people with tablets in their hands and ginseng and various things. "Start working on your bachelor of science degree in alternative medicine or call about our additional bachelor's and master's degree programs". But at the top, it's headed in huge letters, "B.S. in Alternative Medicine".<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
JR: I think that's an appropriate headline; believe me.<br />
<br />
B: Very.<br />
<br />
R: It's perfect.<br />
<br />
JR: So I think that may get on Leno eventually.<br />
<br />
S: What university's offering that?<br />
<br />
JR: This is Boca Raton campus of Everglades University, which is not one of your huge famous universities, obviously.<br />
<br />
S: How could you offer a Bachelor's of Science in something which is totally non-scientific.<br />
<br />
JR: I don't know; ask them. On the back, it has "B.S. in construction management", which sounds a little more proper, but...<br />
<br />
B: Maybe B.P.S.: Bachelor's of Pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
R: There you go.<br />
<br />
JR: Maybe. I didn't think of that.<br />
<br />
=== Water-Powered Cars <small>(46:34)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, Randi, what's some of the more silly things you've run into recently? Anything really absurd you'd like to tell us about?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, I'd have to think about that; there's so many. ''(chuckles)'' They're all over the place. The most recent one is the water car, of course. That's back.<br />
<br />
S: The water car. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.<br />
<br />
JR: Fellow named Horvath in Australia for years was selling stock and became a multi-millionaire selling stock in his water car, which was... and the latest claim is that, I think on two ounces of water, they do over a hundred miles, using the water as fuel. What they ''don't'' mention is that they have to break the water down into hydrogen and oxygen, you see, and then re-combine them. Now, the {{w|Electrolysis|electrolysis}} process that separates hydrogen from oxygen in water is very expensive, time-consuming, and energy-consuming.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
JR: They consume about eight times as much energy to split it up into hydrogen and oxygen as they do to run the motor.<br />
<br />
R: There's always a catch.<br />
<br />
JR: Always a catch. I think this engine was also going downhill a lot. But I'm only suspicious of that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. They don't tell you that it's a hybrid; that there's also a gas engine in there. And they say, "and we're working on a water-only engine". Yeah. You keep working on that.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah. Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah; actually, in the news thing that I saw, they said that his car could run all on water, but right now he was just running on water and gas. And then they moved along, and I'm just thinking, "why bother with the gas? Why not just run it on the water if that's so great?" But they don't really think to ask that question.<br />
<br />
S: This is Klein? This is the most recent one we're talking about, right? Klein, or is there someone else?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, there are many of them around.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah; I know they&mdash;<br />
<br />
JR: The Horvath thing is still going in Australia, and I list a whole number of inventors since 1935 who have come up with the same idea.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. And this recent one was featured on Fox News. They gave an ''absolutely'' credulous report of this guy's water car, without even a hint of skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: And the announcer even says&mdash;as you know if you listen to the broadcast, which is up on the web page<ref name="swift">Randi.org: [http://archive.randi.org/site/jr/2006-05/052606action.html Swift Archive - May 26, 2006]</ref>; you can click on it very easily and hear it in its entirety&mdash;but the announcer actually says, "he generates, from this torch, heat which is greater than the surface of the sun." Duh!<br />
<br />
E: Uh. ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
JR: The surface of the sun is at millions of centigrade degrees. This from a hydrogen flame? Not likely.<br />
<br />
S: Not likely.<br />
<br />
E: Uh, no.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I don't know about the torch thing; I have to look into that a little bit more. I've read some skepticism about that technology as well, but at least that&mdash;If you're generating the energy, you can produce a burning flame from burning hydrogen and oxygen.<br />
<br />
JR: Sure, sure.<br />
<br />
S: That's not anything new.<br />
<br />
JR: It's been done many times. Yes. It's not very practical. They use {{w|Acetylene|acetylene}}; it's much more practical.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But he somehow links that to his... the next thing, which is the car, which is driving on water.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: As long as you have the gas engine running along, too.<br />
<br />
E: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
JR: You know, that's a very popular subject right now, the price of gasoline being what it is.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, sure.<br />
<br />
JR: So it's natural that it would attract attention.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. This always reminds me of Dennis Lee. Have you ever had a run-in with Dennis Lee, Randi?<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, yeah, yeah. I've mentioned him and look on my web page and go to the index&mdash;or to the search engine and you'll see Dennis Lee in there a lot.<br />
<br />
S: Now this guy's a total con artist. He has, like, 50 or 60 devices that he's always trying to sell, and he puts people through this seminar; you know, it's like two- or three-hour sales pitch, basically, and then the people who stick it out and they're sleep-deprived and numbed, then he hits them up with the investment scheme. People are left with the idea of, "wow, if even one of these crazy ideas is true, then we're going to be millionaires". Of course, they're all totally absurd.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah. And not only that, he invokes Jesus a great deal. All the way through.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Religion and patriotism and greed all rolled into one. It's a really good con.<br />
<br />
JR: Mostly greed.<br />
<br />
S: Mostly greed. ''(chuckles)'' Yeah. He does couch it in religious and patriotic terms as well. I guess that appeals to some people. It's all just different forms of free energy. You know, if you really could power a car by splitting and then combining water, that's {{w|Perpetual motion|perpetual motion}}, right? That's free energy. If you were getting more energy out of the process than you were putting in to it, you could produce an infinite amount of energy. But I guess that doesn't seem to bother these people. They don't... realize the inherent contraction in that, and certainly&mdash;<br />
<br />
JR: I call this "perpetual emotion", you see.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
=== ''The Da Vinci Code'' <small>(51:17)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So is everyone eagerly anticipating the opening of ''The {{w|Da Vinci Code}}''? Have you guys been following the controversies about this movie in the news?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, sure. All week.<br />
<br />
B: I might see it tonight.<br />
<br />
S: Is it open tonight?<br />
<br />
B: I think so.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, yes.<br />
<br />
S: So it's always interesting about works of fiction like this, when people like the Catholic church, obviously, and other Christians get upset over works of fiction, but the end up just drawing more attention to it with their protests and by making it controversial.<br />
<br />
JR: Oh, absolutely. What I'm interested here, the angle that interests me, is that the Church is now claiming, of course, that they have the ''only'' truth, and that ''The Da Vinci Code'' is based on fiction. I don't know about that. Do you?<br />
<br />
S: Well, the Catholic Church certainly claims to have the authoritative version of Christianity. I do think that, you know, ''The Da Vinci Code'' is fiction, and I think is less historical. I think there are some aspects of it which are demonstrably historically inaccurate, and of course, they don't care about that. It's a story.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I think, actually&mdash;it was more interesting to me than ''The Da Vinci Code'', which is just silliness&mdash;you know, getting upset about an obvious work of fiction&mdash;was the Judas gospel. The {{w|Gospel of Judas|Gospel according to Judas}}.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Ooh.<br />
<br />
S: Because that's an actual historical document. And that is at least as legitimate as any of the better known Gospels, the Gospels that are quote-unquote "official". I mean, there really is no reason to say the Gospel according to Mark or Matthew or Luke or John has any more historical validity, or even religious validity than this newly revealed Gospel. This was just&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: And Steve, is the Church accepting the Gospel of Judas? I haven't been really following to see what's been happening with that.<br />
<br />
S: What do you mean by "accepting"? That's it's genuine?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I haven't heard anyone disputing the fact that it's a genuine document that's however, like, 1700 years old. Or doubting any of the science behind it. More of what I've been hearing is that they either say that it's heresy. Yeah, sure; it was heresy 1700 years ago and it's still heresy. Or that it's irrelevant. You know, it has nothing to do with the truth, or the official version of what happened. It's just another version which is irrelevant. But I haven't heard any actual&mdash;anyone dispute its historicity, or the science behind its dating, or the scholarship of its translation, or anything.<br />
<br />
JR: You know, something that people have forgotten here, folks, is the ''{{w|The Protocols of the Elders of Zion|Protocols of Zion}} [sic]'', which Henry Ford was very big on. He actually published the ''Protocols of Zion'' as if it were an authentic old document. And of course, that was put to rest almost immediately, but he continued to publish for years, and he sent copies to libraries all over the world. That was a really... talk about a spurious document; it was so obviously a spurious document from the very beginning. No scholar would possibly accept it, but it's still circulating around!<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. People just love an excuse to enact their biases, I think.<br />
<br />
JR: Sure, sure. Of course.<br />
<br />
S: ...Obviously other precedence for that as well; I mean, the entire church of {{w|Mormonism|Mormon}} is based upon an alleged newly discovered gospel that was delivered to... who was it, {{w|Joseph Smith|John Smith}} ''[sic]'' by the {{w|Angel Moroni|angel Moroni}} on the golden tablets.<br />
<br />
E: Sounds reasonable to me.<br />
<br />
S: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
JR: You know, I closed off this week's commentary on Swift with a comment that was sent into me that hadn't occurred to me. I was talking about strange or funny names&mdash;really, convulsively funny names for spirit guides, one of which was {{w|Hilarion}}, which I thought was pretty funny. And someone wrote me and said, "what about Moroni? Can you imagine sitting in a Mormon pew thinking about Moroni for a while?" And then, if you really gave some thought to it, you'd have to be convulsed in laughter. It's true, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, wouldn't that make that the "Moronic Church" then?<br />
<br />
''(all chuckling)''<br />
<br />
JR: You would think so; yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Exactly.<br />
<br />
JR: Church of the Moron.<br />
<br />
S: ''(chuckles)'' The Church of the Morons. It also reminds me of {{w|Billy Meier}}, the Swiss farmer who thinks he's been visited for the last thirty years by aliens. Recently... I say "recently"&mdash;it's like the last ten years or so&mdash;he's really had a cult spring up around him. I thought this guy was, you know, long gone. And part of this cult is that he claims that, based upon some kind of vision, he was led to this cave in the Middle East somewhere, and he discovered a document&mdash;again, sort of a... I think this was an alien document&mdash;that reveals, you know, the hidden truth about everything. Here's the real ultimate truth about reality. He translated it, and then of course, promptly lost the original, so there's no original&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: Ohhh.<br />
<br />
JR: Pity. What a pity.<br />
<br />
B: What are the odds?<br />
<br />
S: But we do have his translation of it. And now, this is like the gospel of Billy Meier; you know, the core text of his cult. So this is a common theme that keeps cropping up: find some hidden text or miraculously revealed text, lose the originals, and then there you go; you have the basis for a new religion.<br />
<br />
JR: Ah well.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
JR: We're faced with this sort of thing every day, folks, and we have to fight it and we have to keep on publicizing the fact that it is BS, after the famous Penn and Teller program, of course, that if we don't do something about it, we are in for a dark age.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's true, and we obviously all think this is fun; that's part of why we do it; we also think it's very important. I think all of us feel, to some extent, this is where our skill and interests lie. I'm sure you feel the same way. But you do feel like you're on a treadmill, because... I'm sure you feel similar to when you're doing your cardiac exercises, that you're working feverishly but you're not really going anywhere. We're actually just&mdash;<br />
<br />
JR: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: It feels like we're working awfully hard just to stand still with all of this.<br />
<br />
E: How's the expression go? "Holding the ocean back with a broom", I believe it is.<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, something like that. One fellow sent me a great metaphor some years ago; I've never forgotten. He said, "what you're doing, Mr. Randi, is like trying to shovel water uphill."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
JR: Which is great, because paddling water in a shovel, of course, is useless, and shoveling it uphill, you know... ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
S: Well, we're almost out of time, so let me... on that line, let me ask you: have you ever had a crisis of faith, where you felt, "why am I wasting my time with all of this? These people are hopeless." Again, you have the unsinkable rubber duckies, the claims that never go away; the believers will always be there. Did you ever have a moment where, in your darkest hour, you thought it was all not worthwhile?<br />
<br />
JR: Well, just once. You know... {{w|Sophia Loren}} has a home about eleven miles in a straight line&mdash;I measured it on the map to be sure&mdash;from where I live at the moment. And she doesn't do that with Oil of Olay; that's witchcraft. No question about it. How she looks that good at that age, that is supernatural, and I may have to pay over the money. I really may have to. And please don't tell Sophia that; she doesn't know that I have a fixation on her, too.<br />
<br />
R: This is just between us.<br />
<br />
S: But you need some more direct proof, right? Need some more eyewitness proof?<br />
<br />
JR: Yes, yes, exactly. And of course, I'm waiting for the night, you know&mdash;it's sort of my fantasy that I fell asleep in front of the TV; found it was raining outside. Oh, it's one o'clock in the morning. My goodness. Get up, stretch, go to the door and decide to head in, and suddenly I hear ''(four taps)'' on the door and I'd say, "oh, who could that be at this hour? It's one o'clock in the morning." I throw open the door, and there is Sophia, standing there with an overnight bag in her hand, soaking wet, saying to me, "I have no place to go."<br />
<br />
''(laughing)''<br />
<br />
JR: This, admittedly, is a fantasy, but please don't tell Sophia, because she might be offended by this.<br />
<br />
B: I don't think she listens to our podcast.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, sure she does. Of course she does.<br />
<br />
''(laughing)''<br />
<br />
JR: Every intelligent person does.<br />
<br />
R: Course.<br />
<br />
=== JREF Podcast <small>(59:39)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Speaking of the podcast, actually, when we had interviewed you last time, and of course this was before your illness, you had mentioned that you and the JREF were going to start a weekly podcast in February, and then, of course, your illness intervened. And I noticed that you haven't done that yet. Do you still plan to do your own podcast?<br />
<br />
JR: Yeah, when we got caught up a little better than we are now. I'm still handling e-mail from February and trying to get rid of that. But it's coming along slowly. Yes, we will go to the podcast. I really want to do that. It's the way to go now, and it's not all that hard to do, and it would bring us a much wider audience. And so we'll go into competition with you, OK?<br />
<br />
S: Right. Welcome competition.<br />
<br />
R: I look forward to it.<br />
<br />
S: But I guess until then, people will just have to listen to you on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
JR: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: So Randi, thanks again for being on the Skeptics' Guide. It's always a pleasure talking with you.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah; thanks, Randi.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you.<br />
<br />
JR: Well, you're very welcome. Very welcome, all of you. Thank you for inviting me. I feel flattered that I'm asked to spend an hour with you on the air, as they say in the trade, and I used to do it for five hours a night, five nights a week on WOR AM and FM, New York.<br />
<br />
E: Great station.<br />
<br />
JR: Yes indeed. But we used to reach 38 states at that time, I think. But this podcast, we're probably reaching more than 38 states and probably all over the world. Isn't that wonderful?<br />
<br />
E: You bet.<br />
<br />
S: We do have listeners who e-mail us from all over the world about our podcast.<br />
<br />
JR: Glad to hear it.<br />
<br />
S: So that's true; that's the wonder of the Internet.<br />
<br />
JR: It is indeed.<br />
<br />
S: But thanks again. Keep up the good work. I'm sure we'll still be in touch and hopefully we'll have you on the show again in the future.<br />
<br />
JR: OK. So for the moment, goodbye, all.<br />
<br />
S: Take care.<br />
<br />
R: Bye, Randi.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Randi.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it is always great to have James Randi on the Skeptics' Guide, and actually, he is our first return guest. He's the first guest that we've had twice on the show.<br />
<br />
E: That's fitting. I find that very fitting.<br />
<br />
B: That is a fast hour.<br />
<br />
S: It does go by very quickly.<br />
<br />
B: Felt like fifteen minutes.<br />
<br />
S: He's very entertaining and fun to talk to. And hopefully we'll have him on again many times for many years. Hopefully he'll be around for a long time; we'll have him on the show again.<br />
<br />
E: That'd be great.<br />
<br />
S: Well, guys, thanks for joining me.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you, Steve.<br />
<br />
B: Good show.<br />
<br />
S: Always a good time.<br />
<br />
E: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References == <br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}<br />
<br />
{{Page categories<br />
|Interview = y <!-- Randi Interview --><br />
|Alternative Medicine = y <!-- Faith healers --><br />
|Cons, Scams & Hoaxes = y <!-- Faith healers, water car --><br />
|Legal Issues & Regulations = y <!-- Licensing pseudoscience --><br />
|Entertainment = y <!-- Da Vinci Code --><br />
|Paranormal = y <!-- Bermuda Triangle --><br />
|Religion & Faith = y <!-- Faith healers, Da Vinci Code --><br />
|Science & the Media = y <!-- Scientific American --><br />
|Technology = y <!-- Water car --><br />
}}</div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9937Template:SGU episode list2015-06-09T23:22:05Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #43 as finished.</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
<br />
Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
<br />
{|<br />
!Key:<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 517]], Jun 6 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 516]], May 30 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_43&diff=9936SGU Episode 432015-06-09T23:20:16Z<p>Jim Gibson: /* Bosnian Pyramid Followup (0:58) */ Fix typo</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
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|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
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|episodeNum = 43<br />
|episodeDate = May 17<sup>th</sup> 2006 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Hyman.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
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|guest1 = RH: {{w|Ray Hyman}}<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2006-05-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, May 17, 2006. This is your host Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Rebecca Watson ...<br />
<br />
R: Hey.<br />
<br />
S: ... Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Thanks for joining us, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Evan Bernstein, ...<br />
<br />
E: Good to be here, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Jay Novella.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, guys.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks for joining me this evening, guys.<br />
<br />
J: My pleasure.<br />
<br />
B: Surely.<br />
<br />
S: So coming up later in the show we have an interview with Ray Hyman. Ray is one of the fathers of modern skepticism and an ESP skeptic. We'll have a good time talking with him, but first a couple of news items.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Bosnian Pyramid Followup <small>(0:58)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: I've been trying to get some follow-up on the Bosnian pyramid fiasco. Remember from a few episodes ago, ...<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ... the amateur archaeologist who believes that these mountains in Bosnia are actually ancient pyramids built by the Atlantean's, who came ...<br />
<br />
J: Steve, don't waste your time. Bob and I flew down there last week and took that sucker out.<br />
<br />
S: You did?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's done.<br />
<br />
B: He's done. We won't be hearing from him anymore.<br />
<br />
R: Good job, guys. Good job.<br />
<br />
E: Well done.<br />
<br />
J: Thank you, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
S: I predicted that &mdash; one of our discussions was not just that his claims are absurd, that these aliens came down and inhabited Atlantis and built these pyramids. But also, the mainstream media was totally taken in by this.<br />
<br />
R: Completely bought in, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Hook, line, and sinker. I predicted, however, that the news cycle would eventually catch up with this, and eventually the mainstream news outlets like New York Times and CNN and BBC would figure out that this was a hoax. But, you know, it hasn't really happened yet, and I did another search today just to see what everyone was saying on it. The New York Times does have a follow-up article that's at least introducing the idea that there are some skeptics to this guy's claim.<br />
<br />
R: It's still pretty bad, though.<br />
<br />
S: It's still pretty bad. It's not saying "Oh, it was a hoax. This guy's an idiot." National Geographic has an article ...<br />
<br />
B: No way!<br />
<br />
S: ... saying that it's basically treating the issue as if it's controversial.<br />
<br />
B: What? National Geographic?<br />
<br />
S: It's pretty skeptical, but it's still presenting it as a controversy, and then ''Archaeology'' is the only one saying "Wow, this guy is nuts, and how is the rest of the mainstream media buying this?" But the other ones, the other outlets like CNN and MSNBC and BBC all still have &mdash; the only articles they have on their sites on this topic is their original credulous article, so they're a little bit slow catching up to this one.<br />
<br />
R: Can I say that my favorite quote from the New York Times is "largely uncritical television newspaper reports have made the photogenic Mr. Osmanagich a national celebrity." They're complaining about the uncritical television and newspaper reports &mdash; like themselves! They reported it!<br />
<br />
S: Like themselves, right. <br />
<br />
B: "Including us."<br />
<br />
S: And, of course, Osmanagich, this is the amateur archeologist, his response to all this is "although scientists are just jealous of my discoveries."<br />
<br />
E: Aahhh, of course!<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, my God! That is awsome.<br />
<br />
R: I so wish I had looked at a hill and said "Oh, it's pyramid-shaped. There must be a pyramid."<br />
<br />
S: It's always a big clue that you're dealing with the pseudoscientists when they start disparaging the mainstream scientific community.<br />
<br />
R: By saying they're jealous.<br />
<br />
J: He's got to be standing at the top of that pyramid hill, ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
J: ... with the thunderclouds behind him, like doing the cackle. I can see that. That's awesome.<br />
<br />
B: Wah, ha, ha!<br />
<br />
S: In Jay's world, right, that's where that's happening.<br />
<br />
J: I love it.<br />
<br />
S: And of course, he's bolstering his claims by saying that they're digging up real worked stone, etc., but, of course, there's actual Roman and other legitimate archaeological sites on that hill that he's now trampling over. One of the archaeologists said "This is like bulldozing over Stonehenge because some kook thinks that there's some hidden treasure underneath."<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
S: So they're appropriately outraged, but the rest of the media has not caught up with that. <ref>[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/pyramid-bosnia-1.html ''Pyramid in Bosnia'', National Geographic News, May 12, 2006]</ref><br />
<br />
=== Mormon Cult Leader on FBI Ten-Most Wanted List <small>(4:31)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now, Rebecca, you sent me an item about a Mormon cult leader who's getting in trouble with the FBI. Why don't you tell us about that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, he's hit the big time. Top 10 most-wanted list, which includes Osama bin Laden, among others, now features one breakaway Mormon cult leader. Not, you know, the traditional Mormon church, but they have these sects that are fundamentalist sects, and they're the polygamist ones.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: And they are really, really insane. His name is {{w|Warren Jeffs}}, and he has built up this cult of &mdash; we're talking like thousands of supporters &mdash; and, basically, he controls this whole area where his supporters are judges and police officers. He travels around with a fleet of SUVs containing his bodyguards. He's considered armed and dangerous as he's traveling around trying to avoid the FBI.<br />
<br />
S: But what got him on the FBI list, other than the fact that he's paranoid and has lots of bodyguards? What's he &mdash; is it the polygamy, or is he doing something else?<br />
<br />
R: I think that it's &mdash; the polygamy includes child molestation, ...<br />
<br />
S: Oh.<br />
<br />
R: ... because they're taking very young girls and brainwashing them and molesting them, allegedly.<br />
<br />
B: And plus, plus ...<br />
<br />
E: I hear that this guy is marrying some of the older males of the cult to the 14-year-old girls.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, hundreds. He set up hundreds of these weddings. Can you imagine?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, he also randomly just takes whole families and rearranges them. He'll take the wives and children and homes from one person and just give them to another. And, I was reading &mdash; I think there was an article on CNN about him where one guy came out against him, a guy who used to be in the sect but got kicked out, and the guy was talking about "Oh, yeah, what a nut this guy is," and then they go on to say that that man got his seven wives taken away from them or something.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, the poor guy.<br />
<br />
R: It's like "awwww."<br />
<br />
J: We'll, if he had seven wives, he should have kept his mouth shut.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's the whole point. They use wives as a perk to keep people in line and also to keep you loyal.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and presumably this guy who's now a detractor of Jeffs, he was fine when he had his seven wives, but Jeffs took them away, and so now he's running to the media. So it's a really creepy cause, and I think that we're seeing &mdash; they're reaching this point where they're going to turn into &mdash; it's going to turn into a disaster, if it's not ...<br />
<br />
S: You think it's like a Waco, Texas, kind of thing?<br />
<br />
E: Branch Davidians?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, you think of all the major headline grabbing cults of the past few years. This is going to be up there. It's huge. He's got like 10,000 supporters.<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
R: And, I mean, they believe the craziest stuff. It's scary. So that was kind of a downer.<br />
<br />
S: It's interesting to talk about these cults. Again, it all gets back to human psychology.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: And how can they brainwash people into believing the kooky stuff that they believe, and adopting these bizarre lifestyles. It's an experiment in human frailty.<br />
<br />
R: Hm.<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails ==<br />
<br />
S: We do have out usual steady stream of emails coming in, which we always appreciate. I'm going to read a few this week.<br />
<br />
=== The Unexplained <small>(8:10)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: The first email comes from David O'Donovan from Dublin, Ireland. <br />
<br />
S: (''Irish accent'') David O'Donovan.<br />
<br />
He says<br />
<blockquote>Hi Guys.</blockquote><br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Any excuse to give a cheesy accent.<br />
<br />
J: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: <br />
<blockquote><br />
First off, I'd just like to say that I really enjoy the podcast. I'm always fascinated by the paranormal and I happened to came across your podcast by accident while searching iTunes. What a great show. I've realised that I'm also fascinated by the skeptics point of view, and although I really like the idea of a paranormal universe, it's nice to get a slap of reality from you guys. Keep up the good work.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
B: I like that: "A slap of reality."<br />
<br />
S: Maybe that should be our new byline. "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe &mdash; a slap to the face of reality." What do you think?<br />
<br />
B: I like it.<br />
<br />
S: <br />
<blockquote><br />
So with that in mind, I'm curious about you guys. Have you ever come across any paranormal claims that made you think twice or that you just can't explain?<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, that is kind of a standard question that paranormal investigators or skeptics get: anything out there really vexed us. Of course, the short answer to this question is always "no". There really is nothing out there that is passing for paranormal that is at all interesting or that is a genuine mystery. And we've been doing this for 10 years, now. When you get into the field with these people, when we're doing ghost investigation or electronic voice phenomena &mdash; we've tested psychics and others &mdash; that it's always amazing how much more lame and pathetic they are than what you imagine them to be just from hearing about them or hearing about their claims or even talking to them. The paranormal claims are being made by people who are profoundly scientifically illiterate, who really don't understand how to think or argue logically, have a incredibly bizarre or distorted worldview, and their claims are often really childish. They're paper thin. So we're always surprised at how lame they are. We've never been surprised by how impressive the alleged phenomenon is or how solid all the claims are. As skeptical and cynical as we are, we always still manage to get surprised by how absurd and ridiculous the claims are. They really are childish.<br />
<br />
R: The thing is, when I try to think of something that I find completely baffling, the only things I can think of are the edges of science ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ... that I just can't quite grasp.<br />
<br />
S: Science is baffling.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Science has genuine mysteries: what's the ultimate structure of the universe, black holes, etc. There's lots of genuine scientific mysteries. There really are no paranormal mysteries out there. You investigate them and "Yep, that's a clear case of self-deception." As soon as you even take a semi-close scientific look at it, it's obvious that it's not a genuine phenomenon.<br />
<br />
J: When I was young, I believeed in chiropractic, but to me it was another school of medicine. It literally took Steve to go to medical school and to really, really find out, and then, you know, Steve, I remember you talking to me about chiropractic way, way, way a long time ago telling me its bunk, and I'm like "What? Chiropractic? You've got to be kidding me." Now, to me, after doing this with you guys for so many years, nothing gets by.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you didn't realize what the claims were all about. You thought it was just a type of physical medicine. You didn't realize that they believed in life energy coursing through your nerves and the crazy stuff that some of them believe.<br />
<br />
=== Science Education Standards <small>(11:49)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: But let's move on to the next email. This one comes from Danny McGee from Valdez Alaska, and Danny writes ...<br />
<br />
J: (''Irish accent'') Danny McGee!<br />
<br />
E: Not quite. Danny McGee, hey?<br />
<br />
S: This ones from Alaska. Danny writes<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Hey guys,<br/>Love the show, listen every week, keep up the good work, yada yada, onto the actual issue:<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Those were his "yada, yadas," not mine. He says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I hear a lot of people in the skeptical/scientific community talking about what crummy science education standards we have in the U.S., and how most high school text books water down the teaching of evolution, so I thought it might be worth noting one of the exceptions. In our small town of Valdez, Alaska, the science education is great. My girlfriend is a high school senior, and the longest chapter in her biology book is 'The Theory of Evolution.' There's a separate chapter on human evolution. Also, it doesn't beat around the bush. In the very beginning of the chapter it states that evolution is the single most fundamental theory in all of biology.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, first, Danny. You can't "yada, yada" our praises.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: You actually have to take the time to tell us how wonderful we are.<br />
<br />
R: Don't be afraid to name names.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, Danny, those praises are what we get paid on.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: We don't make money on this.<br />
<br />
S: We need specifics. But anyway, on to your question. Yeah, sure, education is a very local phenomenon. It's really controlled by local school boards. Individual schools can make textbook decisions. There can always be stellar science teachers anywhere, and they're out there. There are plenty of exceptions, but if you look at the country as a whole, we consistently perform near the bottom in terms of science and math on standardized tests when compared to other industrialized nations. So on the aggregate, we're not doing well. Plus I think if you just look at how scientifically illiterate the American public is, by any reasonable measure, the scientific illiteracy in this country is about 90 to 95%, which is not much lower than the number of people who are not working scientists. So, basically, the only scientifically literate people in this country are working scientists, people who work in some kind of science or technology field, and then maybe a few enthusiasts. So by those standards, overall we're not doing well. I did take a look, after I got your question, just to see what was out there in terms of assessments of high school biology textbooks. And very recently, a couple of years ago, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the AAAS, did an assessment of high school biology textbooks, and they said that across the board they were substandard. Across the board they didn't find any textbooks that were being widely used that measured up in terms of the teaching of biology in general and evolution in particular. And I'll have the link to their assessment on our website. However, I also found &mdash; you guys know Ken Miller?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Yes<br />
<br />
S: {{w|Kenneth R. Miller|Ken Miller}} is the evolutionary biologist who, in my opinion, is one of the best if not the best debater confronting the intelligent design crowd today. He wrote the book ''{{w|Finding Darwin's God}}.'' He's an excellent speaker and writer, and he knows his stuff cold. He co-wrote with Joe Levine a high school biology textbook, and I think it's in its third edition, now, and they have a website dedicated to it. Again, we'll have the link. And from what I could see from their website, it looks to be an excellent biology textbook that deals very well and very comprehensively with evolution. So they're out there. Good textbooks are out there, but it looks like, from their website, only a few school districts are using their textbook. This is something that is definitely winnable. The resources to improve science education in general, evolution education in particular, exist, but unfortunately we have to fight this battle in thousands of local school districts and school boards. There's nothing you can really do on a global level to win this fight.<br />
<br />
B: Well, it might take something like another Sputnik to motivate the entire country ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: ... to upgrade our science education. <br />
<br />
S: We talked about this a little last week with Eugenie Scott. Something may focus federal attention on the quality of science education, and that would help, but it still comes down to those local school boards to get the right textbooks, etc.<br />
<br />
=== Scientology Super Powers For Real? <small>(16:15)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: One last quick email. This is a follow-up to our Scientology superpower topic that we talked about last week. This is from Wendy Bombardi, and Wendy writes<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I looked up the article talking about the perceptics course, but unfortunately I only found one article that everyone is linking to. Is it a reliable site? Doesn't seem like it. But great topic to discuss. Very fun. Laughed out loud.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well, Wendy, I did some follow-up research. If you do just an internet search or Google search on this topic, you will come up with the one article that everyone then link to. Unfortunately, that's just the way things are these days. Somebody writes an article, it gets put on the AP, and then all of the news services link to it, and all the websites that talk about that topic end up linking to the same article. But I was able to find some independent resources, some of which come from Rick Ross. You might remember we had him our show a couple months ago. Rick Ross is probably now the leading cult expert, but other sites as well, that independently verify that L. Ron Hubbard did write about perceptics, that that concept comes from his writing.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah, you can also check. It's in Dianetics. He calls (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's in Dianetics, so that part is real, and that for years, Scientology has been planning this superpower, whatever, facility. Now a lot of the recent reports, and the reason why this is in the news recently, is largely from this one, I believe &mdash; I don't know if he's a current or ex-Scientologist who said he went through this training to gain these superpowerful perceptions. That's the article that you're referring to. Did you find any other resources on that when you were searching on that topic, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: A few. If you search for "perceptics," you have to go really deep into Google, like ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ... page eight or nine, and then you start turning up these really weird Scientologist links that are just odd.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, they're not weird.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, they are.<br />
<br />
S: The bottom line is I think this one is for real. And, again, you always have to reinforce that when you're talking about what Scientologists believe, that, yup, they really believe this.<br />
<br />
R: And if you go to dianetics.org, you can learn all about Dianetics. I think if you a search for perceptics on there, you'll find some sites.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(18:39)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: So I promised last week that we would do a Name That Logical Fallacy segment, so let's do that before we go on to our interview. And actually Rebecca, you sent this one to me. This is from Don Walton, the Time For Truth Ministries.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, the "Don".<br />
<br />
S: The Don. This is just a typical representation of a lot of the critics. This is more like a creation science website, not so much intelligent design. I'm taking a couple of excerpts out of what he says. He writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Isn't it amazing what today's scientists can deduce from a mere rock or dust particle. Do you remember the Genesis space capsule? Scientists assured us that this important space mission, designed to gather solar atoms, would eventually enable them to explain the origin of the universe. Unfortunately, the space capsule crashed upon its return to the earth. Its parachute malfunctioned due to the fact that it had been put in backwards. Now I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, scientists who can't figure out which way to put in a parachute have no chance of figuring out the origin of the universe.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
This should be a pretty straightforward logical fallacy. What do you guys think about that paragraph? Anyone want to bite?<br />
<br />
B: Is that ''ad-hoc''?<br />
<br />
E: ''Non-sequiter''<br />
<br />
B: ''Ad-hoc'' reasoning?<br />
<br />
S: The non sequitur is tough, because really, when you think about it, all logical fallacies are non sequiturs. They're all subsets of non sequiturs. Yeah, so non sequitur is always the right answer, but you can get more specific than that. It's not really so much ad hoc, he's not inventing a specific reason to explain a specific result. It's basically, this is an ad hominem. This is an ad hominem attack. So, in its broadest concept, an ad hominem, which basically means arguing against the person rather than the evidence or the logic, is when you say that someone's claims are wrong because of some negative quality they possess, and there are lots of subsets of that basic concept. Here, he's saying the scientists are wrong because they've made mistakes in the past.<br />
<br />
B: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: So this is the appeal to prior error, which is a subset of the ad hominem attack.<br />
<br />
R: And there's so much more that's even wrong with that, because he's not even criticizing scientists, he's criticizing &mdash; you might think he is, but he's criticizing who ever put in a parachute on the thing.<br />
<br />
S: Right. It's a technical thing. It had nothing to do with the scientific method or the evidence for evolution or whatever.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But he goes on. He says<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Yet, before we throw our Bibles away, let's remember a similar claim made by evolutionists several years ago. The coelacanth, discovered in fossil remains believed by scientists to be 400 million years old, was once touted by evolutionists as the "missing link" between fish and land animals. This prehistoric creature was believed to have possessed both lungs and gills as well as lobed fins and a skeletal and muscular system that enables it to walk on either the ocean floor or dry land. Today, thanks to the fact that hundreds of them have been caught off the coast of South Africa, the coelacanth has been nicknamed "the living fossil." This so-called living fossil has not only given evolution a black eye, but left evolutionists scratching their heads for an explanation as to why the coelacanth failed to evolve into an amphibian and has remained virtually unchanged for the past 400 million years. Of course, the coelacanth will eventually evolve, evolutionists assure us, just give it a gazillion years or two.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Wow! You could dig a lot out of that.<br />
<br />
R: There's just so much wrong with it.<br />
<br />
S: Well, let's get specific. Tell me what hits you? What can you dissect out of that?<br />
<br />
J: It's bull.<br />
<br />
S: It is bull. Along those lines, we talk about logical fallacies, but you also have to examine the premises. His premise about the coelacanth is completely wrong in a way.<br />
<br />
R: Right. What really jumps out to me he is his last sentence seems like a total strawman.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
R: Saying that evolutionists will say that the coelacanth will evolve. Nobody's saying that.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Exactly. that is a strawman argument. That is not the position of evolution, that a missing link is in the process of evolving into something else, and that it hasn't evolved, therefore evolutionists are wrong. That is a total strawman argument. That is not what evolutionsits say.<br />
<br />
E: And why have evolutionists ever argued a missing link of anything. They never bring that up.<br />
<br />
S: Missing link is an archaic sort of quaint concept. What we talk about are transitional fossils, and the coelacanth is transitional. All fossils, all animals and fossils, except for currently living ones, are transitional in a way, because everything sits between two other things. Even living species can be considered transitional between related species. And the coelacanth is a fish. It's from, I believe, an order of fish, maybe a family &mdash; I'm not sure about that, but it's a group of fish that does have what was close to those fish that did evolve into land animals. That doesn't mean that the coelacanth should have evolved over time itself into amphibians. Because, again, the creationists have this sort of linear concept of evolution. They don't understand that evolution's a branching tree or branching bush. The false premise here is that the coelacanth has not evolved over 400 million years. Again, he's referring to a coelacanth as if it is a species. It's not. It's a higher group of fish, and the coelacanth's that we discover today are not the same coelacanth fossils that are 400 million years old. For example, that would be like finding that there was a dinosaur living in the jungle somewhere, and dinosaur is an order of reptiles. We wouldn't find a triceratops today. We would find something that is 65 million years downstream but still within the dinosaur order. Does that make sense? Coelacanths are many species within a group of fish, and, yeah, there are coelacanth descendents of 400 million-year-old coelacanth ancestors. That group survived into modern times, but not the species.<br />
<br />
R: It's like he dug up your great-grandfather's corpse and said it was you.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right. Exactly.<br />
<br />
R: It's just wrong.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, granted, though, there are certain species that have changed very little over extended periods of time, such as sharks and alligators. There's really very little change.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: And that does happen, but so what? They're well-suited to their environment. How does that go against evolution?<br />
<br />
R: One of things he says is that he holds up the coelacanth as the black eye.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Like that's the only thing that we call a "living fossil," as opposed to things like the ginkgo tree dogfish, the Gar hagfish, lamprey lungfish. It's like they're everywhere.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, there's lots of species that have not changed much over long periods of time, and that's because that happens in stable, outbred, large populations that are generalists. They're not highly specialized to a specific environment. They have a general suite of abilities that enable them to live in many environments.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve, was he supposing that once an organism is alive, that it's on the path of evolution, and it's like spinning a coin, like it's going to happen, right?.<br />
<br />
S: Again, he says "why hasn't the coelacanth evolved?" Well, that's ridiculous. First of all, the fact that it still exists doesn't mean it can't have evolutionary descendents.<br />
<br />
R: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
S: That's kind of a non sequitur, and it's basically based upon a false premise about how evolution works, which also makes it a strawman argument. So often arguments can include multiple logical fallacies at the same time, and creationists are great at doing that.<br />
<br />
R: I find that the strawman is the usual go-to for creationists.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Creationists &mdash; they can't argue against what evolutionists are really saying, because what evolutionists are saying is valid.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: It's logical and based on evidence, so they have to argue against a strawman.<br />
<br />
J: What logical fallacy is "Oh, yeah!".<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: That is ...<br />
<br />
B: He's thinking about it!<br />
<br />
S: ... appeal to personal incredulity, maybe.<br />
<br />
J: I love you, man. You're the best skeptic on the planet.<br />
<br />
S: It could also be the appeal to ridicule, which is a subset of the personal incredulity argument. It's basically saying "that's nonsense."<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but you've got to say it like that: "Oh, yeah!".<br />
<br />
S: "Oh, yeah!"<br />
<br />
E: "You, too" might fall into that category.<br />
<br />
S: The ''tu quoque'', you mean?<br />
<br />
R: Tu quoque?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: It's not a fallacy unless you use the Latin.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: Jay, I think that one was grasping at strawmen.<br />
<br />
S: "Grasping at strawmen". All right, well, there you go. Let's go to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ray Hyman <small>(27:45)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: So joining us now is Ray Hyman. Ray, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
RH: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: Dr. Hyman got his PhD in psychology from Johns Hopkins University and taught psychology and statistics at Harvard University. He is an expert in self and other deception, evaluating studies involving humans. He is a prominent critic of paranormal research who wrote the definitive critique of the {{w|Ganzfeld experiment|Ganzfeld experiments}}. He is the author of at least a couple of books: ''The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research'', and you wrote with another author ''Water Witching USA''. You wrote that with Evan Vogt.<br />
<br />
RH: Yeah, Evan Vogt. Right. Evan Vogt. We call him EV.<br />
<br />
S: EV.<br />
<br />
RH: EV Vogt<br />
<br />
=== Ganzfeld Experiements <small>(28:39)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, again, it's great to have you on the Skeptics' Guide. So, let's start with the Ganzfeld experiments. We had Marilyn Schlitz on our show a few weeks ago, and she gave us the pro-ESP side of the Ganzfeld experiments. Of course, your name came up. Give us your summary of what you think about these experiments and what they really tell us about the reality of the ESP.<br />
<br />
RH: Well, they tell us nothing about the reality of ESP. They tell us a lot about the psychology of parapsychologists.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Hm, hm, hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: The real problem is with the field as a whole, of course. But the original Ganzfeld experiments were started &mdash; I think the first one was published about 1970s, I think the early 70s, yeah. By the time &mdash; early 1980 &mdash; I was asked by two different sources to do something about parapsychology. For example, the IEEE Journal, that's the international &mdash; for the electronic engineering journal.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: They were going to publish, and they did publish, an article by {{w|Robert G. Jahn|Robert Jahn}}, which created a lot of problems. Robert Jahn was then the Dean of Applied Sciences and Engineering at Princeton University. He's still there, and he runs what's called the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory. So he did a long article on his research and parapsychology as a whole, which was rather positive.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And that created enough commotion, the editors contacted me and asked if I would write what they called the tutorial on ESP, to balance the ...<br />
<br />
S: The proponents.<br />
<br />
RH: Yes, to give the other side of the issue, more or less. So I did, ultimately, a very long article for them. But at the same time &mdash; this was early 80s &mdash; I was asked to participate in the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Society for Psychical Research. 1882 is when they founded it, and 1982 the Parapsychological Association and the Society for Psychical Research, which still exists, decided to have a big celebration, 100th anniversary celebration at Cambridge University in England. And as part of that celebration, they decided to have one whole day devoted to skeptics.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And they were going to have a skeptic from each continent, and I represented the United Americas, I guess.<br />
<br />
J: Nobody celebrates skeptics. Who celebrates skeptics?<br />
<br />
RH: And they had Susan Blackmore represent England, and they had some skeptics from other places.<br />
<br />
R: Who was Antarctica?<br />
<br />
RH: Yeah. I don't know who represented Antarctica, but we had about maybe 5 or 6 of us, and we had all-day sessions where we presented the skeptical viewpoint, and so, to prepare for that, I decided, "Hey, you know, I can't read every" &mdash; the one problem that critics of parapsychology had created is that most critics, including my good friends like Martin Gardner and Randi and so on, attacked parapsychological research without even having read it (''laughter'') or knowing anything about it. And when they do attack it, they attack it at its worst, and that bothered me, because it's always embarrassing to have my good friends attacking for the wrong reasons. By the way, this is one of the real major reasons in the history of parapsychology why it's still around and why it hasn't profited from constructive real good criticism.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: Because they are able to dismiss criticism that they get. It's irrelevant or attacking straw people and stuff like that. So I decided, okay, I'm going to do it right, and I decided I would look at their best efforts. I couldn't read everything, so I contacted parapsychologists themselves, and I said "Okay, what would you say is the best, most promising avenue of research in the field?", and almost all of them pointed to the Ganzfeld studies.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: There was then about forty Ganzfeld studies had been done, and I contacted Charles Honorton, who had published the very first Ganzfeld study, and he was so delighted to have a skeptic take him seriously that he decided &mdash; he told me he would get me a report of every experiment ever done on it, including ones that hadn't even been published.<br />
<br />
R: Nice.<br />
<br />
RH: And ultimately, he sent me &mdash; it took six months, but he sent me 600 pages of documents. I hadn't realized what I was getting myself in for.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, at that point I think you reconsidered how Randi and Martin Gardner were doing it, huh?<br />
<br />
RH: So I began going over and reading those, and at first I was quite impressed. You begin reading these things, and each study is getting one significant result after another and supposedly using good sophisticated statistics, knowing about controls and everything else. Many of them with PhDs, many I knew of, like Irving Child at Yale University and people like that. And so it looked very good. But then I sat down and began reading each study and making note of what defects I could find, and I come up with a list of twelve categories. I thought I could (''unintelligible''). I wanted to be able to say they did or did not do the statistical test right. They did or did not use multiple testing without correcting for it, things like that.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: I come up with twelve categories, and to my horror, I discovered that no one experiment escaped at least one of these categories, and most of them just had several of them. And most of these categories I thought were flaws that parapsychologists themselves would say, "hey, if you've got that flaw, that experiment just can't be trusted."<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And that surprised me, because many of these people were people I knew. I had some respect for parapsychologists who had scientific training, and I was surprised that there were so many defects in this body of literature. So I finally wrote up my critique of that whole body of literature, that's the original database, we call it, in 1985. And the Journal of Parapsychology published it, but they held on to my paper for a year, and I wasn't able to change it. While they let Honorton spent time trying to work up his response to it.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: So that whole issue of the Journal of Parapsychology in 1985 was devoted to my critique and then Honorton's equally lengthy response to it. I was so upset with his response, because it was accusing me of all kinds of things, and, of course, he had 14 months to play with his response, and I had no rebuttal. Usually, in fact, all psychology journals, when you have an argument like that, the original person gets the last word.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
RH: So I wrote a very long rebuttal, step-by-step to his thing, and, again, they sent if off to him. They said they would publish my rebuttal, my response to his rebuttal, but they were first going to let him have his chance to respond to it. I met him at that time, while he was still playing with my rebuttal, and somehow we went to lunch, and he was very upset that I had so maligned him in my rebuttal. "I didn't malign you. You're the one who maligned me!" You get around to the book, you know, and you accuse me of things that you, yourself, did, you know. That's your fault. And he was almost like a child, almost read to cry over this. He was very upset over this. Then I realized by then, too, that what had happened was that all these skeptics &mdash; Martin, Randi, but also all the academic skeptics, were all just enthused by my article. They said "Boy, you really showed them up. You really destroyed their whole stuff." But all the parapsychologists were saying, "Boy, Honorton, you showed Ray Hyman up." They (''unintelligible'') his argument, completely. And I realized that neither side, no one but Chuck Honorton and myself, actually thought reading all the details and looking into the nitty-gritty of what we're fighting over. No one else &mdash; everyone is taking for granted that either I was completely right, and they wouldn't take my word for it on the parapsychological side, they weren't going to check out all the things we were fighting over. So, at that point I sat down and I told Chuck, "Well, maybe we'll agree we'll do a joint paper", because I was surprised that he was agreeing with me in our talk about several things which I didn't realize he would go along with me. For example, he agreed that no matter how good he thought the original database was, he realized there were enough problems with it we could not conclude that there was anything called ESP or psi based on the original database. So we did a joint paper on how to replicate it: what would be required for adequate replication, what standards would be needed, and so on. And sure enough about 1980 or so he had come up in six years of research in his laboratory and he had come up with what's called the autoganzfeld experiment, which supposedly met all the criteria that he and I had agreed upon and were highly significant, and then {{w|Daryl Bem}} joined him, who's a well-known social psychologist, but decided to support him and use his name on the article &mdash; put his name on the article, and they were able to publish in the Psychological Bulletin, which was quite a coup. But the editor of the Psychological Bulletin agreed to publish it, because Daryl Bem's name was on it, but only if I would write a commentary on it. So I did. And Bem &mdash; by then Honorton had unfortunately died &mdash; and Bem wrote a response to my commentary. And then, the field hasn't stopped yet, because then {{w|Richard Wiseman|Wiseman}}, some years later, Wiseman and Milton, they put together &mdash; they did a meta-analysis of all the Ganzfeld studies since the debates between Honorton and myself, and they decided that they all added up to zero effect size and there was nothing there.<br />
<br />
S: And these are the experiments that allegedly fixed the specific criticisms that you had made to Honorton.<br />
<br />
RH: Well, yeah, supposedly. And then (''unintelligible''), because Bem and some parapsychologists got together, and they added some more studies to the Wiseman/Milton one, and they reanalyzed and they decided there was something there.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: At the same time {{w|Dean Radin}}, parapsychologist, published his book in 1997 called ''The Conscious Universe'', which if you want to know the best, strongest argument to make about parapsychology, that book is it. That has chapter after chapter of meta-analyses with odds of trillions to one &mdash; billions to one or trillions to one, typically, he says against the possibility of this being chance. And he does it in every area of parapsychology, so it's an overwhelming type of thing. At the same time, Wiseman published their stuff, his book came out, and he does a meta-analysis of parapsychology, the ganzfeld experiments, too, up to 1997. And he concludes that with odds of a trillion to one against chance they really have been replicated. This is the same time that Wiseman and Milton came out with their meta-analysis and said the effet size is zero, there's nothing there.<br />
<br />
R: How are they seeing things so differently? <br />
<br />
RH: Okay, well that was a mystery at first to me. Then I found two things that go on. This is typical of parapsychologism, unfortunately. One thing, of course, is that if you look at the studies each included, there are some that Wiseman and Milton hadn't included in their meta-analysis, and there are some that Radin had omitted and put in, and this made some difference. And that's one of the problems with meta-analysis, it's a very subjecting thing: what you include and what you don't include. But the main thing is what I call "double dipping", and it goes on a lot in parapsychology. By double dipping, I mean they're having their cake and eating it too. Basically, what he did for his meta-analysis, to show that the studies had been successfully replicated since our debate, he included studies before and during that we had debated over into his meta-analysis along with the new ones.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: So the ones we debated over, we already know that the effect size is big, and if you do that, of course, they being counted &mdash; they raise the effect size. I call it double-dipping.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
RH: It goes on a lot.<br />
<br />
S: Astrologers are famous for that, too.<br />
<br />
RH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: If you find some random effect, and then you include that in your subsequent data so it perpetuates either the bad data or the random effect through the alleged follow-up studies, so it sort of poisons the data.<br />
<br />
B: Isn't that also called the "file drawer effect"?<br />
<br />
S: The file drawer effect is not including studies that are negative, yeah.<br />
<br />
RH: Okay, well the way they handle the file drawer effect &mdash; a better way. The parapsychologists are very sophisticated about all these things. They handle the file drawer effect by using a correction that {{w|Robert_Rosenthal_(psychologist)|Robert Rosenthal}} created, and what they do is they look at the studies that have been published that they have, and they then say "okay, how many studies would have to have been in the file drawer which had zero effect size?", right.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And to neutralize what had already been existing. And you come up with big numbers like with the original ganzfeld studies there were about 42 studies in the original ganzfeld database. When they applied Robert Rosenthal's correction, they decided that would mean something like several hundred, maybe a few thousand studies, would be needed if there were to be a file drawer to neutralize those published studies. And because it is so difficult to run an individual ganzfeld study, they said just very implausible that the file drawer effect could apply to this. Several problems with that, of course. One is that the use of just assuming that all the ones in the file drawer have zero effect size is unrealistic, because probably several of them have to have negative effect sizes.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: And they're just leaving that out by chance. So there's a bias there. But also I did my corrections for file drawer and stuff like that. It's not that clear cut that this is a good correction, that you can correct it that way, anyway. However, it's still means that the existence of a file drawer effect, even if it's small, does add some bais to their effect sizes that they have when they do their meta-analyses.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: Most important thing is that meta-analysis is the stupid thing to do. It confuses what we call confirmatory with exploratory research. A meta-analysis is a good exploratory research type of thing, and to give you one example how un-robust meta-analysis is, the very first meta-analysis ever done in parapsychology was me. I did it. I did a meta-analysis on the original ganzfeld data. That's part of my critique of the work, because I did this meta-analysis, and I'm very sorry I did it, because ever since then all the parapsychologists latched onto it, and the only evidence they have now for any evidence that might be psi, is based on their meta-analyses.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
B: So that was all your fault?<br />
<br />
RH: What's that? Yes, unfortunately, I did the first one, and then they latched onto it. They latched onto it for a very good reason. Remember I found all these flaws in their research, and the flaws continue. Honorton published a paper one time saying, "Look, a flaw is only a flaw if you can demonstrate that it made a difference." So, let's say a study used the wrong statistical test, or they used multiple testing. They did data mining. They did something that's very wrong.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: Lest the critic, the skeptic &mdash; by the way, this another ploy they like to use is putting the onus or burden of proof on the wrong foot.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
RH: They always like to shift it. And so unless the skeptic or the critic can show that the flaw really made a significant difference, then it's not a flaw. That's what I call retrospective sanctification.<br />
<br />
=== ESP Research <small>(45:50)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, Ray, while we're still talking about ESP, I did want to just step back a little bit, because we get bogged down, I think a lot, in the details of the research, and, of course, they are all extremely important, but I also think it's helpful to look at ESP research on the whole, and, for me, always one of the big difference's has been that ESP research isn't building on itself. It isn't moving forward. Is that your assessment as well?<br />
<br />
RH: Yes, I've always said, going back maybe 40 years, I always kept saying that one of the real problems with the field is not cumulative.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: Every generation says "Well, forget about the early stuff that Rhine did, and stuff like that. We know that was bad work. But the new stuff, oh, that's great!" The ganzfeld was like that. That was the new hope that they had, and it's still going. Actually, ganzfeld's been hanging up longer than many other fields. But they've dropped a lot of the areas that were once their big breadwinners.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: They keep changing, and it's not like other fields, where it's cumulative and you build on it.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. There's still trying to just demonstrate that the statistical fluctuations in the data are real, and they're sort of stuck on that first step.<br />
<br />
RH: Right, yeah, well worse than that, they're the only field I know of that has this premises that they are trying to create anomalies. They are trying to find anomalies. In science, anomalies &mdash; by the way, they use this word anomalies ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: ... and they use it in a different way, too. Every word they use, they take from science and use it differently.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they call it "anomalous cognition", right?<br />
<br />
RH: Yeah. But in science, as a whole, anomaly is a very, very well-defined deviation from a theoretical prediction, and you precisely can specify what that anomaly is. For example, when {{w|Alexis Bouvard|Bouvard}} was concerned about, and other people concerned about, the orbit of Uranus, he went and rechecked it over and over again. He found very precise deviations, departure from what it should be according to the Newtonian theory (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
J: Was that Mercury?<br />
<br />
RH: No, Mercury was next, but with Uranus, he finally predicted exactly what kind of a planet, that was Neptune, it turned out to be. It would have to have an orbit, what size it would be, and so on, to reduce that anomaly, to make it no more an anomaly. When parapsychologists use "anomaly", they just simple mean some sort of departure from chance, which can't be explained at the moment.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Something "weird".<br />
<br />
B: It's an artifact. It's an artifact.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so it's kind of like an argument from ignorance.<br />
<br />
RH: It's an argument from ignorance, but it's worse than that. It's what I call a patchwork quilt fallacies involved here as well. My favorite example is that {{w|Joseph Banks Rhine|Rhine}}, by the middle thirties he had created quite a stir, and scientists were interested because he was for the first time claiming all kinds of highly significant results with his card-guessing experiments. In the middle of our lab, about 5 or 10 years into that, he suddenly announced that he discovered a new effect, that shows that psi is real, ESP is real. And that was the ''decline effect''. Well he'd gone back and looked at his own and other parapsychologist's experiements and found that in many cases he found that the beginning of the experiment they would have more hitting than they should be getting, and at the end of the experiment, they would have less hitting than you would expect, and when you put them together, you usually got average, around chance. And that's why people weren't getting as many successful results as they should be.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: So he declared that, and he declared that since no one was looking for that decline effect that was a real effect. Now, it turns out that afterwords, not many people were finding decline effects, but that didn't bother him. If they didn't get a decline effect, they get an ''incline'' effect. That was good, too.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: Or if they didn't get an incline effect or a decline effect but they got something else that was significant, that was fine as well. Which meant that, since they don't specify, they have no positive theory what psi should be.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: They can't tell when psi is not there, so any glitch is grist for their mill. And that's where they are today, too. They can't predict what's going to happen, and if you don't get anything, that's fine too, because that means that there is what's called psi-conducive conditions, and they don't know what they are, and conditions don't allow it to happen. So they're in a wonderful situation that nothing can disconfirm their findings. They get something, even though it wasn't what was predicted, as long as it's a deviation from chance, that's okay. That's another sign of psi. Now this gets to ridiculous proportions, because when I reviewed the autoganzfeld experiments that Bem and Honorton published in Psychological Bulletin, I found some very peculiar things in the data, which indicated to me that there's a real artifact going on there. And Bem's response to my finding of this peculiarity in the data, was "Hey, if this holds up, this could be another effect of psi, and we're going to name it the Hyman effect."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, God!<br />
<br />
S: Any anomaly is a new effect.<br />
<br />
RH: This is what's called the patchwork quilt fallacy, that anything that happens can be claimed as a sign of psi, and if it doesn't happen, that's okay, something else can be claimed a sign of psi.<br />
<br />
J: Why is it always have to be these little anomalies and stuff. I want someone to read my mind, that's it.<br />
<br />
B: That's all they've got, Jay. That's all they got!<br />
<br />
J: Read my mind!<br />
<br />
B: That's all they've got.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but somebody should just stand up one day and say "Enough with these little anomalies and all that crap. Read my mind!" Like do something significant.<br />
<br />
R: Well, that's a big part of it is that they're going through all of these tests, and in the end, even in the best of possible worlds, what they've got is a very, very, very tiny effect that doesn't really mean anything.<br />
<br />
S: It can only exist in very peculiar research conditions, right?<br />
<br />
RH: By the way, "significant" sounds like an interesting term. It's a bad term to use, because it sounds like it's something meaningful, right? "Significant."<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: All it means is that you've got a low probability. The problem there is also they rarely, since they don't specify too clearly in advance exactly the whole what I call the outcome space, you don't know exactly what they were predicting. You don't know how many things they would have looked at ahead of time, so we don't know whether that 5% chance, or whatever it was, really is 5%, because you have hundreds of different things you can latch onto, and you test each one at 5%, you've got a very high probability that at least one of those things is going to end up being significant, in that sense.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: So, it's interesting, that if you go back and read their own literature, as I do, you find that there are papers by parapsychologists. There are two recent ones that stick in my mind where two major parapsychologists have gone through the data in every area of parapsychology, like the ganzfeld and stuff like that, and what they find, over time, the effect size keeps decreasing, ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: ... approaching zero. And that's true in all the areas that they have evaluated, (''laughs'') and now you think they say "Uh, oh, that means we're in trouble. Maybe we've got nothing". No, no, what they do is they begin developing the very elaborate theories of why psi is different, and that becomes a property of psi, that you find something that's useful, a nice effect size, but over time it gradually disappears, and so that's another property of psi.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's the "shyness effect." It likes to hide from experimenters. They also talk about now the "experimenter effect," which means when anyone who is not a true believer does the study or tries to replicate them, they come up with a null effect or a negative result, and "well, that's because you're a nonbeliever."<br />
<br />
RH: Even believers, even some of the major parapsychologists have been unable to get a significant effect. Some parapsychologists claim "our only real finding is the experimenter effect." But think about it. If that's the only real finding, that means that one of the basic premises of other sciences is being abolished as the (''unintelligible'') of scientific data.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: That means that only some people under some conditions, and not even all parapsychologists (''unintelligible'') there going to observe what they're studying, which is very, very weird. By the way, another thing they like &mdash; there are several sobering things you can raise and say, "Hey, this is something very bad about this field." Three of the most sobering things is that parapsychologists always like to say "well, look, you psychologists also have trouble replicating your data, and you have all kinds of problems. We're just as good as you guys are in someways." Well, complement to that is this: every field, including psychology, that claims to be a science, every field that claims to be a science, has several of what Kuhn call paradigm experiments. In other words, we have experiments that we can take and give to students, new students, and say "go do this experiment and you're going to get these results." We have memory experiments, we have sexual experiments, even thousands of them. And every field has this, except one field. That one field is parapsychology.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: Not a single experiment that they can give anyone and say "go do this and you'll get that." Every other field has thousands of them. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: And that already means that, hey, this is a very special field.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Well, that pattern is very familiar to skeptics who deal with these topics, and that's the pattern you see when there's no real phenomenon at the core of the research, when the research is basically looking for something that doesn't exist. And we see that in homeopathy; we see it in dowsing; we see it in multiple, multiple paranormal fields. You see the exact same thing. The same patterns: the better the experiments get, the smaller the effect size. It tends to vanish to zero as the experimental design evolves.<br />
<br />
RH: And the problem here is that the parapsychologist &mdash; what to me, the fascinating thing to me being in a field like this is that most of these parapsychologists almost all of them have a PhD of some sort, and some have actually a name in some field.<br />
<br />
J: What a waste of (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
RH: I'm always fascinated by how these people can fool themselves, you know. How they can convince themselves of this. They have explanations for everything, you know, and so everything you just pointed out, all these weaknesses that we're talking about, this then becomes the property of scientists, and they're using their smarts to outsmart themselves. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah. Now I've also found, and this is definitely true of Marilyn Schlitz, who we had on our show recently, that they really do have a different worldview, and for them, the reason why this little tiny anomaly is important is because if it's real that means the paranormal universe is real. Regardless of how important or big or useful or practical the effect is, it means that all of their belief systems in healing energy, in spirituality, and everything else is justified. It makes everything real to them.<br />
<br />
RH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And, of course, there is a lot of overlap. But, again, like Marilyn, who was talking to us about ESP and may have a PhD, may be a serious researcher, but she also believes in a lot of kooky things, a whole suite of kooky things including energy healing, and it's not a coincidence. And yet at the same time she dismissed our skepticism as what she called an ''a priori'', meaning that "well, we just come from a different paradigm, and that's the only difference between us. We have one paradigm; they have another." Well, that's not the only difference. The difference is in the details of methodology and logic, which, I think, are clearly lacking in this field.<br />
<br />
R: She swore up and down that she wasn't a true believer.<br />
<br />
RH: They love these terms "paradigm", and they love all that kind of stuff.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
RH: And, of course, they're into all the linguistic aspects as well.<br />
<br />
S: Postmodernism in general.<br />
<br />
RH: Postmodernism (''unintelligible''), yeah. There buy all that stuff.<br />
<br />
J: It blows my mind that over and over and over again they keep getting, even at their best fake results that they can come up with, it's so incredibly small and weak that if psi did exist, what good would it be anyway?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but, again, I think it's the whole point is to validate their worldview, not to say that this is a useful, something useful.<br />
<br />
RH: Let me defend them against what you said: "what use would it be?" If in fact they could show that there's something ESP that's really going on there, it doesn't make any difference whether it has any practical effect or not. It would be very mind-blowing for science as we know it. It would be a real challenge. So in that sense, if they did try something like that, it really was an anomaly in the sense that it couldn't be accounted for within the framework of the Einstein/Newtonian worldview or whatever it is, then, I think, it would be a challenge to science as we know it. It would be a very serious something that we have to take very seriously. <br />
<br />
J: So are they all racing to be the first one to find something substantial?<br />
<br />
RH: Now you are touching on another thing, too. That's another thing going on here. I always used to wonder why among parapsychologists, they rarely used to cite one another's work. I realized finally that each one is in it because he or she wants to the "Newton".<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: The one who makes the breakthrough. It's a low, low probability. It's like hitting the lottery, I think, the way they look at it, I'm sure.<br />
<br />
B: But what would it take to turn these little anomalies into a revolution? Something else has to change or be added. You just can't take these unpredictable anomalies and say "Look, I'm going to change science." What else would have to happen? <br />
<br />
RH: Well, Bob, that's a good question. But, you know, there's some sophistcated people in this. That's what attrative about the field. There's some very sophisticated people. When I began in psychology information theory was big thing, and coding theory, stuff like that. And some of these parapsychologists could have given you an answer like this: "Well, look, it doesn't matter how small these anomalies are if they're real. Then we can do coding and decode things and stuff like that." You know, you can do redundancy coding; you do other kinds of coding, and you could turn it into something worthwhile. Many of them are into quantum physics and stuff like that, so they're aware of these things.<br />
<br />
R: Dean Radin has dome outrageous theories of what we'll be able to do in a future where everybody can read each other's minds that's just, it's kind of ...<br />
<br />
RH: He's a fascinating guy to me, too.<br />
<br />
R: That's a really nice way of putting it, Ray.<br />
<br />
RH: What's fascinating about Radin is that he comes through at first as being very sophisticated. He was one of the first to apply what's called neuroprogramming, where the computer programs learn on their own, to work out the patterns and stuff like that. And he applied it to ESP experiments, to Bob Jahn's work on RNG stuff, and he found, sure enough, that we take the first half of the data and train the computer program on the first half of the data, it predicts the second half of the data. So that shows that the data are real, that's there's really something like psi or something going on in the data. To me, what was horrible about it, two things: one was I was fascinated by using a very sophisticated approach, but it took me a little while to realize that data that you already know &mdash; if I take a set of data where I know this set of data, this person's data has a higher proportion of hits, this one has lower proportion of hits. Then I split them in half, I would expect that those halves are going to have higher proportion of hits and lower proportion of hits than the other half. I'm certainly going to be able to clump them together. That's another example of double-dipping.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
RH: You have to predict new, independent data, not data like that. And he never did that experiment again. And his whole career's been &mdash; now I've gone back and looked at a lot of stuff he's done in the ESP field, and he recently has done &mdash; he has some very clever, novel application of technology and the latest in computer sophistication and so on. And yet, he gets results and then he never repeats that. It gets dropped and he goes on to other stuff.<br />
<br />
R: Hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And as a cynic, you wonder what happened there. Why does no one else follow him? Why doesn't he follow-up his own great work, right?<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: And then I found out some other things. When I went through his presentiment work, I went through it and I found &mdash; it took me awhile to find it &mdash; that hey, he's done three experiments, each one replicated the other, but when I go down to the fancy way that he was correcting for baselines and stuff like that, the correction was one way in one experiment, the second experiment was a different correction, the third experiement was a different correction. And then I realized and did some simulations, and the corrections from the first experiment would almost &mdash; and from the second experiment would cancel each other out. In other words, it would give a different result.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And why was he always changing his result, his corrections? Ha, ha, ha. And I realized that this was an unsettled kind of, maybe unconscious or conscious, I'm not sure which, way of making sure you're going to get what you want from the data.<br />
<br />
S: He's making an ''ad hoc'' statistical fix to make the data significant. We call that cheating, right? That's basically just fraud, whether it's conscious or unconscious.<br />
<br />
RH: Well, actually, I have enough experience as a statistical consultant for all kinds of people and groups to realize that people do this and fool themselves. It looks like it's cheating.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: You can't be sure they literally cheated. I remember being on a program ''20-20'' opposite {{w|Rosemary Altea}} once, and she kept asking me did I think she's a fraud, and I don't know if she was a fraud. All I can say is that if I were a fraud, I would do exactly what she does.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Ray, we are out of time. I hate to say it. It was a lot of fun talking to you.<br />
<br />
RH: Thank you. I enjoyed it. I'm sorry I rambled. <br />
<br />
S: That's okay.<br />
<br />
R: No, we loved to hear you ramble.<br />
<br />
S: There's so much more actually that I was thinking of asking you that we didn't get to. We'll have to have you back on the show some time.<br />
<br />
RH: Happy to any time.<br />
<br />
B: Great.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Thanks, again. Take care.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks, Ray.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ray.<br />
<br />
RH: Bye.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that was great having Ray Hyman on, and he did tell us that this was his first podcast.<br />
<br />
B: Broke his cherry.<br />
<br />
R: That's awesome.<br />
<br />
S: We got Ray's first podcast.<br />
<br />
B: He is awesome or what, but we only scratched the surface with him. We have to have him back.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we do. We didn't even talk about cold reading, which is his real baliwick, so we have to have him back.<br />
<br />
R: For Ray, we need like an entire day. We need a twenty-four hour podcast, and just have him talk.<br />
<br />
J: He really comes off as a amazingly friendly, intelligent, fun guy.<br />
<br />
R: He is. <br />
<br />
S: He is like the good cop of skepticism, which is amazing why there is so much venom against him, now, because he doesn't believe what they want him to believe.<br />
<br />
J: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: Well we have time for a Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(65:52)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three news items or facts. Two are genuine, and one is fictitious, and then I challenge my esteemed panel of skeptics to decide which one is the fake.<br />
<br />
B: They couldn't come today, but we're here.<br />
<br />
S: But of course I encourage you to play along with us. I have a theme for this week. The theme is cosmology.<br />
<br />
R: That's great!<br />
<br />
J: I guarantee you Bob get's this one right.<br />
<br />
R: I don't know, because I went to hair-dressing school, so I think I've got it.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, I was going to say. I think Rebecca has an advantage over the rest of us on this one.<br />
<br />
R: I'm going to kick your asses, so let's go.<br />
<br />
S: Ready. Number one: physicists have discovered a way to cause light to travel backwards.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, come on. That's just stupid.<br />
<br />
R: (''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Item number two: based upon recent observations of the most distant quasars, physicists have recalculated the age of the universe up from 13.7 billion years to as high as 19 billion years. Item number three: physicists in a recent publication claim to provide evidence for the existence of a contracting universe before the Big Bang. So: light going backwards, recalculating the age of the universe from 13 to 19 billion years, or new evidence of a Big Crunch before the Big Bang.<br />
<br />
J: Jesus!<br />
<br />
S: Jay, go first.<br />
<br />
J: All right, well, of course I'm going first. What sucks about this, and you, in particular, Steve, is that two of them have to be wrong or else I have to kill myself. So ...<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you mean you ''want'' two of them to be wrong, man.<br />
<br />
J: Two of them ''have'' to wrong, man. Yeah, the light traveling backwards makes absolutely no sense to me, but I'm going to just have to say it possible that it's true, because I don't know. The third one has to be false; it has to be. We have no concept of what happened before the Big Bang, none, whatsoever. It is blank void never-to-be-known, and that's it. That's my final answer.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, so you think number three is incorrect, is fake. Ah, Evan.<br />
<br />
E: I'll say that number three is incorrect, as well, for basically the same reason. I don't see how they could have any evidence as to what happened before what is deemed the Big Bang.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: I just don't understand.<br />
<br />
J: Steve did say that somebody published that. That could be true. I think I just caught the snag there.<br />
<br />
E: True.<br />
<br />
J: He didn't say that &mdash; eh, I don't know. I'll stick with three anyway.<br />
<br />
E: Light traveling backwards seems not so outrageous. They do, what? Talk about teleporting light from one place to another, and I've read about that a little bit. Recalculating the age of the universe from 13 billion to 19 billion, okay. Seems plausible. I'll stay with three.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Um, okay. I think that I'm pretty sure I read an article, or maybe I heard somewhere the thing about the light traveling backwards, so I think that's true. And number two just seems too plausible. I don't think you would have &mdash; yeah, I think number two is the fake one, because number three is just &mdash; it's too crazy. You wouldn't have made that up. And it's a cool idea. I like the idea of it, and I think that they could possibly &mdash; you know they're doing crazy things with quantum whatnot. I think that ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: I like to use the technical jargon. I don't mean to speak above the heads of most of our listeners.<br />
<br />
S: You mean the whole sort of general mishmash.<br />
<br />
B: Ahhh! Good one, Steve.<br />
<br />
R: Quantum thingamajig. So I'm going with number two.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, Bob?<br />
<br />
B: I'll say that oh, yes, he would make that stuff up. Number one, I could see that happening. They could do some amazing things with light, depending upon what media it's propagating in. They've caused it to essentially stop and re-create itself in some experiments, so, yeah, that's &mdash; I'd like to read the details about that, but that seems totally plausible to me. Quasars &mdash; the universe 13.7 to 19. Wow! I didn't hear about that, and that's a pretty significant leap. And that would've been my choice, except then you said number three: evidence of a contracting universe before the Big Bang. No. You can't have evidence for that. Relativity and quantum mechanics become nonsensical before &mdash; during the conditions of the Big Bang, there's no way you could predict anything before the Big Bang, let alone a few milliseconds after it, so that's definitely &mdash; that can't be true, unless you snuck in some weasel word in there that I didn't pick up.<br />
<br />
R: So, it's just me, then, huh?<br />
<br />
S: All right, so three of you, the guys, think that evidence before &mdash; of the Big Crunch before the Big Bang is fake. Rebecca thinks that the revising the age of the universe from 13 to 19 billion years is fake, and you all agree that light can go backwards. You have no problem with the whole &mdash; so we'll do that one. That is true. No, that one is true. And you guys all got it. There are lots of funky quantum mechanical experiments that you could make light do all kinds of things under certain conditions. You could make it seem to go faster than the speed of light, to go slower, and, actually, it was predicted that you should be able to make light go backwards, and then, finally, somebody did. This is Robert Boyd of the University of Rochester.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: How did he do it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: It says, yeah, it's weird stuff. Dang if I can understand the actual physics behind this.<br />
<br />
J: Did you say "dang"?<br />
<br />
R: I think he did.<br />
<br />
S: But, uh ...<br />
<br />
E: He's from Rochester.<br />
<br />
R: Didn't they use fiber-optic cables, or something.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, dang, you betcha! They used fiber-optic cables, and what they were able to do is demonstrate that the pulse of light that they were sending through, and, of course, they were doing something to modulate the pulse of light, but the pulse actually gets &mdash; it exits the fiber-optic before it actually even enters it. So it actually travels backward from the source, from the receptor to the source. But, of course, like all of these experiments, which appear to make light travel faster than the speed of light or whatever, information is not traveling faster than the speed of light.<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Information is not traveling backwards, and the laws of relativity really deal with information, but waves can be made to behave or seem to behave in weird ways. So the way they described is that the light wave, the leading edge of the light wave, gets to the end of the fiber-optic cable first, and that leading edge contains all of the information about the light wave itself. Then the light wave sort of gets reconstituted out of that information at the end of the light wave, and it sends a pulse back to the beginning.<br />
<br />
J: I totally don't get it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, there's actually kind of a neat graphic on the website that you can kind of see that happening.<br />
<br />
B: It's pretty cool.<br />
<br />
S: It's weird. But the bottom line to remember is that they're just sort of making waves do bizarre things &mdash; waves of light do bizarre things, but none of these experiments have ever violated Einstein's general relativity, because &mdash; or special relativity, because the information cannot be transmitted faster than the speed of light, and that's the real law.<br />
<br />
J: Yada, yada, yada. Get to the reveal. Tell us what the ...<br />
<br />
S: All right, all right. So, what's it going to be? Let's talk about: physicists in a recent publication claim to provide evidence for the existence of a contracting universe before the Big Bang.<br />
<br />
J: What?<br />
<br />
S: Now, I must admit I was very skeptical of this one when I first read it. I had to read it, but that one is true.<br />
<br />
R: I win.<br />
<br />
J: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Now the evidence, of course, is all theoretical, but this was published ...<br />
<br />
B: Then is it evidence?<br />
<br />
S: Well as much as anything is in cosmology.<br />
<br />
J: What did I tell you, Evan. <br />
<br />
E: Yeah, you said that Becky would get it right. That's what I said, too.<br />
<br />
S: ... published by Abhay Ashtekar, Director of the Institute of Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Penn State University. And he &mdash; basically, what he's saying is that rather than a Big Bang, there is what he is calling a quantum bounce. I wonder if that term is actually going to ...<br />
<br />
B: Stick.<br />
<br />
S: ... take off and replace the Big Bang.<br />
<br />
R: So what you're saying is a quantum thingamajig.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, but ...<br />
<br />
E: Technically. Technically.<br />
<br />
S: He says "We were so surprised by the finding, he added, that the team repeated the calculation for months to include different possible values of some numbers representing the current universe, but the results kept pointing to a bounce." So, basically, they're extrapolating from the physical laws of the universe to suppose what might have come before the Big Bang. And their calculations bear out the model that includes this quantum bounce, and they ran the numbers over and over again, and it keeps coming out that way. So, obviously, this has to be vetted, and the implications have to be assessed by other physicists. This is all still highly theoretical.<br />
<br />
J: I feel totally ripped off right now.<br />
<br />
S: But that's what they're (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
B: How do you predict that when you don't really know what happened right after the Big Bang? How do you extrapolate beyond that when you can't even get to the Big Bang? How do you go beyond the Big Bang?<br />
<br />
E: It's got to be a guess.<br />
<br />
B: I know. "Evidence" was the ...<br />
<br />
S: The articles that I read did not really convey that. So I could not learn that from the sources that I read.<br />
<br />
B: All right, go ahead, Steve, go to two. That one sounded pretty wacky, too.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean, number two I just made up.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, do you really need an explanation?<br />
<br />
B: You know, as wacky as that was, three was even wackier, and you must've known I would have jumped on that one.<br />
<br />
S: I know. Three was the bait here. You guys are right. Saying anything about what happened before the Big Bang certainly seems to defy logic, but this is a method of, again, extrapolating from the way the universe is now. And, again, I don't think that you could probably understand it unless you're a theoretical physicist who understands multidimensional differential calculus.<br />
<br />
E: All right, let's get him on and interview him. We obviously have to know.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we have to some degree see what does the scientific community have to say about this. But, again, the item was that there was a paper published claiming this. So, Rebecca is the sole victor this week.<br />
<br />
R: Yay!<br />
<br />
J: I give you props, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
E: As was predicted by both Jay and Evan.<br />
<br />
J: You did very good Rebecca. I admit it.<br />
<br />
E: So, we get a (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
S: But it means I have to try harder next week.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, Steve, you did pretty good this week, because I would have bet hard cash on this one.<br />
<br />
S: I do try to make it challenging, but it is fun, and Rebecca does get props for getting two in a row correct.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: So, thanks again for joining me. It was a good show. I enjoyed it guys.<br />
<br />
J: You, too, Steve.<br />
<br />
B: Good one.<br />
<br />
J: Ray was fantastic.<br />
<br />
S: Ray was fantastic, and I will say that next week we have James Randi giving us an interview.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
R: The bad cop of skepticism.<br />
<br />
S: Keep an eye out for that one. He's the bad cop of skepticism. We had the good cop; next week is the bad cop, so look for James Randi next week.<br />
<br />
R: Cool.<br />
<br />
S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. <br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, May 17, 2006. This is your host Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Rebecca Watson ...<br />
<br />
R: Hey.<br />
<br />
S: ... Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Thanks for joining us, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Evan Bernstein, ...<br />
<br />
E: Good to be here, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Jay Novella.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, guys.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks for joining me this evening, guys.<br />
<br />
J: My pleasure.<br />
<br />
B: Surely.<br />
<br />
S: So coming up later in the show we have an interview with Ray Hyman. Ray is one of the fathers of modern skepticism and an ESP skeptic. We'll have a good time talking with him, but first a couple of news items.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Bosnian Pyramid Followup <small>(0:58)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: I've been trying to get some follow-up on the Bosnian pyramid fiasco. Remember from a few episodes ago, ...<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ... the amateur archaeologist who believes that these mountains in Bosnia are actually ancient pyramids built by the Atlantean's, who came ...<br />
<br />
J: Steve, don't waste your time. Bob and I flew down there last week and took that sucker out.<br />
<br />
S: You did?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's done.<br />
<br />
B: He's done. We won't be hearing from him anymore.<br />
<br />
R: Good job, guys. Good job.<br />
<br />
E: Well done.<br />
<br />
J: Thank you, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
S: I predicted that &mdash; one of our discussions was not just that his claims are absurd, that these aliens came down and inhabited Atlantis and built these pyramids. But also, the mainstream media was totally taken in by this.<br />
<br />
R: Completely bought in, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Hook, line, and sinker. I predicted, however, that the news cycle would eventually catch up with this, and eventually the mainstream news outlets like New York Times and CNN and BBC would figure out that this was a hoax. But, you know, it hasn't really happened yet, and I did another search today just to see what everyone was saying on it. The New York Times does have a follow-up article that's at least introducing the idea that there are some skeptics to this guy's claim.<br />
<br />
R: It's still pretty bad, though.<br />
<br />
S: It's still pretty bad. It's not saying "Oh, it was a hoax. This guy's an idiot." National Geographic has an article ...<br />
<br />
B: No way!<br />
<br />
S: ... saying that it's basically treating the issue as if it's controversial.<br />
<br />
B: What? National Geographic?<br />
<br />
S: It's pretty skeptical, but it's still presenting it as a controversy, and then ''Archaeology'' is the only one saying "Wow, this guy is nuts, and how is the rest of the mainstream media buying this?" But the other ones, the other outlets like CNN and MSNBC and BBC all still have &mdash; the only articles they have on their sites on this topic is their original credulous article, so they're a little bit slow catching up to this one.<br />
<br />
R: Can I say that my favorite quote from the New York Times is "largely uncritical television newspaper reports have made the photogenic Mr. Osmanagich a national celebrity." They're complaining about the uncritical television and newspaper reports &mdash; like themselves! They reported it!<br />
<br />
S: Like themselves, right. <br />
<br />
B: "Including us."<br />
<br />
S: And, of course, Osmanagich, this is the amateur archeologist, his response to all this is "although scientists are just jealous of my discoveries."<br />
<br />
E: Aahhh, of course!<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, my God! That is awsome.<br />
<br />
R: I so wish I had looked at a hill and said "Oh, it's pyramid-shaped. There must be a pyramid."<br />
<br />
S: It's always a big clue that you're dealing with the pseudoscientists when they start disparaging the mainstream scientific community.<br />
<br />
R: By saying they're jealous.<br />
<br />
J: He's got to be standing at the top of that pyramid hill, ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
J: ... with the thunderclouds behind him, like doing the cackle. I can see that. That's awesome.<br />
<br />
B: Wah, ha, ha!<br />
<br />
S: In Jay's world, right, that's were that's happening.<br />
<br />
J: I love it.<br />
<br />
S: And of course, he's bolstering his claims by saying that they're digging up real worked stone, etc., but, of course, there's actual Roman and other legitimate archaeological sites on that hill that he's now trampling over. One of the archaeologists said "This is like bulldozing over Stonehenge because some kook thinks that there's some hidden treasure underneath."<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
S: So they're appropriately outraged, but the rest of the media has not caught up with that. <ref>[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/pyramid-bosnia-1.html ''Pyramid in Bosnia'', National Geographic News, May 12, 2006]</ref><br />
<br />
=== Mormon Cult Leader on FBI Ten-Most Wanted List <small>(4:31)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now, Rebecca, you sent me an item about a Mormon cult leader who's getting in trouble with the FBI. Why don't you tell us about that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, he's hit the big time. Top 10 most-wanted list, which includes Osama bin Laden, among others, now features one breakaway Mormon cult leader. Not, you know, the traditional Mormon church, but they have these sects that are fundamentalist sects, and they're the polygamist ones.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: And they are really, really insane. His name is {{w|Warren Jeffs}}, and he has built up this cult of &mdash; we're talking like thousands of supporters &mdash; and, basically, he controls this whole area where his supporters are judges and police officers. He travels around with a fleet of SUVs containing his bodyguards. He's considered armed and dangerous as he's traveling around trying to avoid the FBI.<br />
<br />
S: But what got him on the FBI list, other than the fact that he's paranoid and has lots of bodyguards? What's he &mdash; is it the polygamy, or is he doing something else?<br />
<br />
R: I think that it's &mdash; the polygamy includes child molestation, ...<br />
<br />
S: Oh.<br />
<br />
R: ... because they're taking very young girls and brainwashing them and molesting them, allegedly.<br />
<br />
B: And plus, plus ...<br />
<br />
E: I hear that this guy is marrying some of the older males of the cult to the 14-year-old girls.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, hundreds. He set up hundreds of these weddings. Can you imagine?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, he also randomly just takes whole families and rearranges them. He'll take the wives and children and homes from one person and just give them to another. And, I was reading &mdash; I think there was an article on CNN about him where one guy came out against him, a guy who used to be in the sect but got kicked out, and the guy was talking about "Oh, yeah, what a nut this guy is," and then they go on to say that that man got his seven wives taken away from them or something.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, the poor guy.<br />
<br />
R: It's like "awwww."<br />
<br />
J: We'll, if he had seven wives, he should have kept his mouth shut.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's the whole point. They use wives as a perk to keep people in line and also to keep you loyal.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and presumably this guy who's now a detractor of Jeffs, he was fine when he had his seven wives, but Jeffs took them away, and so now he's running to the media. So it's a really creepy cause, and I think that we're seeing &mdash; they're reaching this point where they're going to turn into &mdash; it's going to turn into a disaster, if it's not ...<br />
<br />
S: You think it's like a Waco, Texas, kind of thing?<br />
<br />
E: Branch Davidians?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, you think of all the major headline grabbing cults of the past few years. This is going to be up there. It's huge. He's got like 10,000 supporters.<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
R: And, I mean, they believe the craziest stuff. It's scary. So that was kind of a downer.<br />
<br />
S: It's interesting to talk about these cults. Again, it all gets back to human psychology.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: And how can they brainwash people into believing the kooky stuff that they believe, and adopting these bizarre lifestyles. It's an experiment in human frailty.<br />
<br />
R: Hm.<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails ==<br />
<br />
S: We do have out usual steady stream of emails coming in, which we always appreciate. I'm going to read a few this week.<br />
<br />
=== The Unexplained <small>(8:10)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: The first email comes from David O'Donovan from Dublin, Ireland. <br />
<br />
S: (''Irish accent'') David O'Donovan.<br />
<br />
He says<br />
<blockquote>Hi Guys.</blockquote><br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Any excuse to give a cheesy accent.<br />
<br />
J: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: <br />
<blockquote><br />
First off, I'd just like to say that I really enjoy the podcast. I'm always fascinated by the paranormal and I happened to came across your podcast by accident while searching iTunes. What a great show. I've realised that I'm also fascinated by the skeptics point of view, and although I really like the idea of a paranormal universe, it's nice to get a slap of reality from you guys. Keep up the good work.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
B: I like that: "A slap of reality."<br />
<br />
S: Maybe that should be our new byline. "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe &mdash; a slap to the face of reality." What do you think?<br />
<br />
B: I like it.<br />
<br />
S: <br />
<blockquote><br />
So with that in mind, I'm curious about you guys. Have you ever come across any paranormal claims that made you think twice or that you just can't explain?<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, that is kind of a standard question that paranormal investigators or skeptics get: anything out there really vexed us. Of course, the short answer to this question is always "no". There really is nothing out there that is passing for paranormal that is at all interesting or that is a genuine mystery. And we've been doing this for 10 years, now. When you get into the field with these people, when we're doing ghost investigation or electronic voice phenomena &mdash; we've tested psychics and others &mdash; that it's always amazing how much more lame and pathetic they are than what you imagine them to be just from hearing about them or hearing about their claims or even talking to them. The paranormal claims are being made by people who are profoundly scientifically illiterate, who really don't understand how to think or argue logically, have a incredibly bizarre or distorted worldview, and their claims are often really childish. They're paper thin. So we're always surprised at how lame they are. We've never been surprised by how impressive the alleged phenomenon is or how solid all the claims are. As skeptical and cynical as we are, we always still manage to get surprised by how absurd and ridiculous the claims are. They really are childish.<br />
<br />
R: The thing is, when I try to think of something that I find completely baffling, the only things I can think of are the edges of science ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ... that I just can't quite grasp.<br />
<br />
S: Science is baffling.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Science has genuine mysteries: what's the ultimate structure of the universe, black holes, etc. There's lots of genuine scientific mysteries. There really are no paranormal mysteries out there. You investigate them and "Yep, that's a clear case of self-deception." As soon as you even take a semi-close scientific look at it, it's obvious that it's not a genuine phenomenon.<br />
<br />
J: When I was young, I believeed in chiropractic, but to me it was another school of medicine. It literally took Steve to go to medical school and to really, really find out, and then, you know, Steve, I remember you talking to me about chiropractic way, way, way a long time ago telling me its bunk, and I'm like "What? Chiropractic? You've got to be kidding me." Now, to me, after doing this with you guys for so many years, nothing gets by.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you didn't realize what the claims were all about. You thought it was just a type of physical medicine. You didn't realize that they believed in life energy coursing through your nerves and the crazy stuff that some of them believe.<br />
<br />
=== Science Education Standards <small>(11:49)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: But let's move on to the next email. This one comes from Danny McGee from Valdez Alaska, and Danny writes ...<br />
<br />
J: (''Irish accent'') Danny McGee!<br />
<br />
E: Not quite. Danny McGee, hey?<br />
<br />
S: This ones from Alaska. Danny writes<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Hey guys,<br/>Love the show, listen every week, keep up the good work, yada yada, onto the actual issue:<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Those were his "yada, yadas," not mine. He says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I hear a lot of people in the skeptical/scientific community talking about what crummy science education standards we have in the U.S., and how most high school text books water down the teaching of evolution, so I thought it might be worth noting one of the exceptions. In our small town of Valdez, Alaska, the science education is great. My girlfriend is a high school senior, and the longest chapter in her biology book is 'The Theory of Evolution.' There's a separate chapter on human evolution. Also, it doesn't beat around the bush. In the very beginning of the chapter it states that evolution is the single most fundamental theory in all of biology.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, first, Danny. You can't "yada, yada" our praises.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: You actually have to take the time to tell us how wonderful we are.<br />
<br />
R: Don't be afraid to name names.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, Danny, those praises are what we get paid on.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: We don't make money on this.<br />
<br />
S: We need specifics. But anyway, on to your question. Yeah, sure, education is a very local phenomenon. It's really controlled by local school boards. Individual schools can make textbook decisions. There can always be stellar science teachers anywhere, and they're out there. There are plenty of exceptions, but if you look at the country as a whole, we consistently perform near the bottom in terms of science and math on standardized tests when compared to other industrialized nations. So on the aggregate, we're not doing well. Plus I think if you just look at how scientifically illiterate the American public is, by any reasonable measure, the scientific illiteracy in this country is about 90 to 95%, which is not much lower than the number of people who are not working scientists. So, basically, the only scientifically literate people in this country are working scientists, people who work in some kind of science or technology field, and then maybe a few enthusiasts. So by those standards, overall we're not doing well. I did take a look, after I got your question, just to see what was out there in terms of assessments of high school biology textbooks. And very recently, a couple of years ago, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the AAAS, did an assessment of high school biology textbooks, and they said that across the board they were substandard. Across the board they didn't find any textbooks that were being widely used that measured up in terms of the teaching of biology in general and evolution in particular. And I'll have the link to their assessment on our website. However, I also found &mdash; you guys know Ken Miller?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Yes<br />
<br />
S: {{w|Kenneth R. Miller|Ken Miller}} is the evolutionary biologist who, in my opinion, is one of the best if not the best debater confronting the intelligent design crowd today. He wrote the book ''{{w|Finding Darwin's God}}.'' He's an excellent speaker and writer, and he knows his stuff cold. He co-wrote with Joe Levine a high school biology textbook, and I think it's in its third edition, now, and they have a website dedicated to it. Again, we'll have the link. And from what I could see from their website, it looks to be an excellent biology textbook that deals very well and very comprehensively with evolution. So they're out there. Good textbooks are out there, but it looks like, from their website, only a few school districts are using their textbook. This is something that is definitely winnable. The resources to improve science education in general, evolution education in particular, exist, but unfortunately we have to fight this battle in thousands of local school districts and school boards. There's nothing you can really do on a global level to win this fight.<br />
<br />
B: Well, it might take something like another Sputnik to motivate the entire country ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: ... to upgrade our science education. <br />
<br />
S: We talked about this a little last week with Eugenie Scott. Something may focus federal attention on the quality of science education, and that would help, but it still comes down to those local school boards to get the right textbooks, etc.<br />
<br />
=== Scientology Super Powers For Real? <small>(16:15)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: One last quick email. This is a follow-up to our Scientology superpower topic that we talked about last week. This is from Wendy Bombardi, and Wendy writes<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I looked up the article talking about the perceptics course, but unfortunately I only found one article that everyone is linking to. Is it a reliable site? Doesn't seem like it. But great topic to discuss. Very fun. Laughed out loud.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well, Wendy, I did some follow-up research. If you do just an internet search or Google search on this topic, you will come up with the one article that everyone then link to. Unfortunately, that's just the way things are these days. Somebody writes an article, it gets put on the AP, and then all of the news services link to it, and all the websites that talk about that topic end up linking to the same article. But I was able to find some independent resources, some of which come from Rick Ross. You might remember we had him our show a couple months ago. Rick Ross is probably now the leading cult expert, but other sites as well, that independently verify that L. Ron Hubbard did write about perceptics, that that concept comes from his writing.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah, you can also check. It's in Dianetics. He calls (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's in Dianetics, so that part is real, and that for years, Scientology has been planning this superpower, whatever, facility. Now a lot of the recent reports, and the reason why this is in the news recently, is largely from this one, I believe &mdash; I don't know if he's a current or ex-Scientologist who said he went through this training to gain these superpowerful perceptions. That's the article that you're referring to. Did you find any other resources on that when you were searching on that topic, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: A few. If you search for "perceptics," you have to go really deep into Google, like ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ... page eight or nine, and then you start turning up these really weird Scientologist links that are just odd.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, they're not weird.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, they are.<br />
<br />
S: The bottom line is I think this one is for real. And, again, you always have to reinforce that when you're talking about what Scientologists believe, that, yup, they really believe this.<br />
<br />
R: And if you go to dianetics.org, you can learn all about Dianetics. I think if you a search for perceptics on there, you'll find some sites.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(18:39)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: So I promised last week that we would do a Name That Logical Fallacy segment, so let's do that before we go on to our interview. And actually Rebecca, you sent this one to me. This is from Don Walton, the Time For Truth Ministries.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, the "Don".<br />
<br />
S: The Don. This is just a typical representation of a lot of the critics. This is more like a creation science website, not so much intelligent design. I'm taking a couple of excerpts out of what he says. He writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Isn't it amazing what today's scientists can deduce from a mere rock or dust particle. Do you remember the Genesis space capsule? Scientists assured us that this important space mission, designed to gather solar atoms, would eventually enable them to explain the origin of the universe. Unfortunately, the space capsule crashed upon its return to the earth. Its parachute malfunctioned due to the fact that it had been put in backwards. Now I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, scientists who can't figure out which way to put in a parachute have no chance of figuring out the origin of the universe.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
This should be a pretty straightforward logical fallacy. What do you guys think about that paragraph? Anyone want to bite?<br />
<br />
B: Is that ''ad-hoc''?<br />
<br />
E: ''Non-sequiter''<br />
<br />
B: ''Ad-hoc'' reasoning?<br />
<br />
S: The non sequitur is tough, because really, when you think about it, all logical fallacies are non sequiturs. They're all subsets of non sequiturs. Yeah, so non sequitur is always the right answer, but you can get more specific than that. It's not really so much ad hoc, he's not inventing a specific reason to explain a specific result. It's basically, this is an ad hominem. This is an ad hominem attack. So, in its broadest concept, an ad hominem, which basically means arguing against the person rather than the evidence or the logic, is when you say that someone's claims are wrong because of some negative quality they possess, and there are lots of subsets of that basic concept. Here, he's saying the scientists are wrong because they've made mistakes in the past.<br />
<br />
B: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: So this is the appeal to prior error, which is a subset of the ad hominem attack.<br />
<br />
R: And there's so much more that's even wrong with that, because he's not even criticizing scientists, he's criticizing &mdash; you might think he is, but he's criticizing who ever put in a parachute on the thing.<br />
<br />
S: Right. It's a technical thing. It had nothing to do with the scientific method or the evidence for evolution or whatever.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But he goes on. He says<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Yet, before we throw our Bibles away, let's remember a similar claim made by evolutionists several years ago. The coelacanth, discovered in fossil remains believed by scientists to be 400 million years old, was once touted by evolutionists as the "missing link" between fish and land animals. This prehistoric creature was believed to have possessed both lungs and gills as well as lobed fins and a skeletal and muscular system that enables it to walk on either the ocean floor or dry land. Today, thanks to the fact that hundreds of them have been caught off the coast of South Africa, the coelacanth has been nicknamed "the living fossil." This so-called living fossil has not only given evolution a black eye, but left evolutionists scratching their heads for an explanation as to why the coelacanth failed to evolve into an amphibian and has remained virtually unchanged for the past 400 million years. Of course, the coelacanth will eventually evolve, evolutionists assure us, just give it a gazillion years or two.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Wow! You could dig a lot out of that.<br />
<br />
R: There's just so much wrong with it.<br />
<br />
S: Well, let's get specific. Tell me what hits you? What can you dissect out of that?<br />
<br />
J: It's bull.<br />
<br />
S: It is bull. Along those lines, we talk about logical fallacies, but you also have to examine the premises. His premise about the coelacanth is completely wrong in a way.<br />
<br />
R: Right. What really jumps out to me he is his last sentence seems like a total strawman.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
R: Saying that evolutionists will say that the coelacanth will evolve. Nobody's saying that.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Exactly. that is a strawman argument. That is not the position of evolution, that a missing link is in the process of evolving into something else, and that it hasn't evolved, therefore evolutionists are wrong. That is a total strawman argument. That is not what evolutionsits say.<br />
<br />
E: And why have evolutionists ever argued a missing link of anything. They never bring that up.<br />
<br />
S: Missing link is an archaic sort of quaint concept. What we talk about are transitional fossils, and the coelacanth is transitional. All fossils, all animals and fossils, except for currently living ones, are transitional in a way, because everything sits between two other things. Even living species can be considered transitional between related species. And the coelacanth is a fish. It's from, I believe, an order of fish, maybe a family &mdash; I'm not sure about that, but it's a group of fish that does have what was close to those fish that did evolve into land animals. That doesn't mean that the coelacanth should have evolved over time itself into amphibians. Because, again, the creationists have this sort of linear concept of evolution. They don't understand that evolution's a branching tree or branching bush. The false premise here is that the coelacanth has not evolved over 400 million years. Again, he's referring to a coelacanth as if it is a species. It's not. It's a higher group of fish, and the coelacanth's that we discover today are not the same coelacanth fossils that are 400 million years old. For example, that would be like finding that there was a dinosaur living in the jungle somewhere, and dinosaur is an order of reptiles. We wouldn't find a triceratops today. We would find something that is 65 million years downstream but still within the dinosaur order. Does that make sense? Coelacanths are many species within a group of fish, and, yeah, there are coelacanth descendents of 400 million-year-old coelacanth ancestors. That group survived into modern times, but not the species.<br />
<br />
R: It's like he dug up your great-grandfather's corpse and said it was you.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right. Exactly.<br />
<br />
R: It's just wrong.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, granted, though, there are certain species that have changed very little over extended periods of time, such as sharks and alligators. There's really very little change.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: And that does happen, but so what? They're well-suited to their environment. How does that go against evolution?<br />
<br />
R: One of things he says is that he holds up the coelacanth as the black eye.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Like that's the only thing that we call a "living fossil," as opposed to things like the ginkgo tree dogfish, the Gar hagfish, lamprey lungfish. It's like they're everywhere.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, there's lots of species that have not changed much over long periods of time, and that's because that happens in stable, outbred, large populations that are generalists. They're not highly specialized to a specific environment. They have a general suite of abilities that enable them to live in many environments.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve, was he supposing that once an organism is alive, that it's on the path of evolution, and it's like spinning a coin, like it's going to happen, right?.<br />
<br />
S: Again, he says "why hasn't the coelacanth evolved?" Well, that's ridiculous. First of all, the fact that it still exists doesn't mean it can't have evolutionary descendents.<br />
<br />
R: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
S: That's kind of a non sequitur, and it's basically based upon a false premise about how evolution works, which also makes it a strawman argument. So often arguments can include multiple logical fallacies at the same time, and creationists are great at doing that.<br />
<br />
R: I find that the strawman is the usual go-to for creationists.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Creationists &mdash; they can't argue against what evolutionists are really saying, because what evolutionists are saying is valid.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: It's logical and based on evidence, so they have to argue against a strawman.<br />
<br />
J: What logical fallacy is "Oh, yeah!".<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: That is ...<br />
<br />
B: He's thinking about it!<br />
<br />
S: ... appeal to personal incredulity, maybe.<br />
<br />
J: I love you, man. You're the best skeptic on the planet.<br />
<br />
S: It could also be the appeal to ridicule, which is a subset of the personal incredulity argument. It's basically saying "that's nonsense."<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but you've got to say it like that: "Oh, yeah!".<br />
<br />
S: "Oh, yeah!"<br />
<br />
E: "You, too" might fall into that category.<br />
<br />
S: The ''tu quoque'', you mean?<br />
<br />
R: Tu quoque?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: It's not a fallacy unless you use the Latin.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: Jay, I think that one was grasping at strawmen.<br />
<br />
S: "Grasping at strawmen". All right, well, there you go. Let's go to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ray Hyman <small>(27:45)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: So joining us now is Ray Hyman. Ray, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
RH: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: Dr. Hyman got his PhD in psychology from Johns Hopkins University and taught psychology and statistics at Harvard University. He is an expert in self and other deception, evaluating studies involving humans. He is a prominent critic of paranormal research who wrote the definitive critique of the {{w|Ganzfeld experiment|Ganzfeld experiments}}. He is the author of at least a couple of books: ''The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research'', and you wrote with another author ''Water Witching USA''. You wrote that with Evan Vogt.<br />
<br />
RH: Yeah, Evan Vogt. Right. Evan Vogt. We call him EV.<br />
<br />
S: EV.<br />
<br />
RH: EV Vogt<br />
<br />
=== Ganzfeld Experiements <small>(28:39)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, again, it's great to have you on the Skeptics' Guide. So, let's start with the Ganzfeld experiments. We had Marilyn Schlitz on our show a few weeks ago, and she gave us the pro-ESP side of the Ganzfeld experiments. Of course, your name came up. Give us your summary of what you think about these experiments and what they really tell us about the reality of the ESP.<br />
<br />
RH: Well, they tell us nothing about the reality of ESP. They tell us a lot about the psychology of parapsychologists.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Hm, hm, hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: The real problem is with the field as a whole, of course. But the original Ganzfeld experiments were started &mdash; I think the first one was published about 1970s, I think the early 70s, yeah. By the time &mdash; early 1980 &mdash; I was asked by two different sources to do something about parapsychology. For example, the IEEE Journal, that's the international &mdash; for the electronic engineering journal.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: They were going to publish, and they did publish, an article by {{w|Robert G. Jahn|Robert Jahn}}, which created a lot of problems. Robert Jahn was then the Dean of Applied Sciences and Engineering at Princeton University. He's still there, and he runs what's called the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory. So he did a long article on his research and parapsychology as a whole, which was rather positive.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And that created enough commotion, the editors contacted me and asked if I would write what they called the tutorial on ESP, to balance the ...<br />
<br />
S: The proponents.<br />
<br />
RH: Yes, to give the other side of the issue, more or less. So I did, ultimately, a very long article for them. But at the same time &mdash; this was early 80s &mdash; I was asked to participate in the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Society for Psychical Research. 1882 is when they founded it, and 1982 the Parapsychological Association and the Society for Psychical Research, which still exists, decided to have a big celebration, 100th anniversary celebration at Cambridge University in England. And as part of that celebration, they decided to have one whole day devoted to skeptics.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And they were going to have a skeptic from each continent, and I represented the United Americas, I guess.<br />
<br />
J: Nobody celebrates skeptics. Who celebrates skeptics?<br />
<br />
RH: And they had Susan Blackmore represent England, and they had some skeptics from other places.<br />
<br />
R: Who was Antarctica?<br />
<br />
RH: Yeah. I don't know who represented Antarctica, but we had about maybe 5 or 6 of us, and we had all-day sessions where we presented the skeptical viewpoint, and so, to prepare for that, I decided, "Hey, you know, I can't read every" &mdash; the one problem that critics of parapsychology had created is that most critics, including my good friends like Martin Gardner and Randi and so on, attacked parapsychological research without even having read it (''laughter'') or knowing anything about it. And when they do attack it, they attack it at its worst, and that bothered me, because it's always embarrassing to have my good friends attacking for the wrong reasons. By the way, this is one of the real major reasons in the history of parapsychology why it's still around and why it hasn't profited from constructive real good criticism.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: Because they are able to dismiss criticism that they get. It's irrelevant or attacking straw people and stuff like that. So I decided, okay, I'm going to do it right, and I decided I would look at their best efforts. I couldn't read everything, so I contacted parapsychologists themselves, and I said "Okay, what would you say is the best, most promising avenue of research in the field?", and almost all of them pointed to the Ganzfeld studies.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: There was then about forty Ganzfeld studies had been done, and I contacted Charles Honorton, who had published the very first Ganzfeld study, and he was so delighted to have a skeptic take him seriously that he decided &mdash; he told me he would get me a report of every experiment ever done on it, including ones that hadn't even been published.<br />
<br />
R: Nice.<br />
<br />
RH: And ultimately, he sent me &mdash; it took six months, but he sent me 600 pages of documents. I hadn't realized what I was getting myself in for.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, at that point I think you reconsidered how Randi and Martin Gardner were doing it, huh?<br />
<br />
RH: So I began going over and reading those, and at first I was quite impressed. You begin reading these things, and each study is getting one significant result after another and supposedly using good sophisticated statistics, knowing about controls and everything else. Many of them with PhDs, many I knew of, like Irving Child at Yale University and people like that. And so it looked very good. But then I sat down and began reading each study and making note of what defects I could find, and I come up with a list of twelve categories. I thought I could (''unintelligible''). I wanted to be able to say they did or did not do the statistical test right. They did or did not use multiple testing without correcting for it, things like that.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: I come up with twelve categories, and to my horror, I discovered that no one experiment escaped at least one of these categories, and most of them just had several of them. And most of these categories I thought were flaws that parapsychologists themselves would say, "hey, if you've got that flaw, that experiment just can't be trusted."<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And that surprised me, because many of these people were people I knew. I had some respect for parapsychologists who had scientific training, and I was surprised that there were so many defects in this body of literature. So I finally wrote up my critique of that whole body of literature, that's the original database, we call it, in 1985. And the Journal of Parapsychology published it, but they held on to my paper for a year, and I wasn't able to change it. While they let Honorton spent time trying to work up his response to it.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: So that whole issue of the Journal of Parapsychology in 1985 was devoted to my critique and then Honorton's equally lengthy response to it. I was so upset with his response, because it was accusing me of all kinds of things, and, of course, he had 14 months to play with his response, and I had no rebuttal. Usually, in fact, all psychology journals, when you have an argument like that, the original person gets the last word.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
RH: So I wrote a very long rebuttal, step-by-step to his thing, and, again, they sent if off to him. They said they would publish my rebuttal, my response to his rebuttal, but they were first going to let him have his chance to respond to it. I met him at that time, while he was still playing with my rebuttal, and somehow we went to lunch, and he was very upset that I had so maligned him in my rebuttal. "I didn't malign you. You're the one who maligned me!" You get around to the book, you know, and you accuse me of things that you, yourself, did, you know. That's your fault. And he was almost like a child, almost read to cry over this. He was very upset over this. Then I realized by then, too, that what had happened was that all these skeptics &mdash; Martin, Randi, but also all the academic skeptics, were all just enthused by my article. They said "Boy, you really showed them up. You really destroyed their whole stuff." But all the parapsychologists were saying, "Boy, Honorton, you showed Ray Hyman up." They (''unintelligible'') his argument, completely. And I realized that neither side, no one but Chuck Honorton and myself, actually thought reading all the details and looking into the nitty-gritty of what we're fighting over. No one else &mdash; everyone is taking for granted that either I was completely right, and they wouldn't take my word for it on the parapsychological side, they weren't going to check out all the things we were fighting over. So, at that point I sat down and I told Chuck, "Well, maybe we'll agree we'll do a joint paper", because I was surprised that he was agreeing with me in our talk about several things which I didn't realize he would go along with me. For example, he agreed that no matter how good he thought the original database was, he realized there were enough problems with it we could not conclude that there was anything called ESP or psi based on the original database. So we did a joint paper on how to replicate it: what would be required for adequate replication, what standards would be needed, and so on. And sure enough about 1980 or so he had come up in six years of research in his laboratory and he had come up with what's called the autoganzfeld experiment, which supposedly met all the criteria that he and I had agreed upon and were highly significant, and then {{w|Daryl Bem}} joined him, who's a well-known social psychologist, but decided to support him and use his name on the article &mdash; put his name on the article, and they were able to publish in the Psychological Bulletin, which was quite a coup. But the editor of the Psychological Bulletin agreed to publish it, because Daryl Bem's name was on it, but only if I would write a commentary on it. So I did. And Bem &mdash; by then Honorton had unfortunately died &mdash; and Bem wrote a response to my commentary. And then, the field hasn't stopped yet, because then {{w|Richard Wiseman|Wiseman}}, some years later, Wiseman and Milton, they put together &mdash; they did a meta-analysis of all the Ganzfeld studies since the debates between Honorton and myself, and they decided that they all added up to zero effect size and there was nothing there.<br />
<br />
S: And these are the experiments that allegedly fixed the specific criticisms that you had made to Honorton.<br />
<br />
RH: Well, yeah, supposedly. And then (''unintelligible''), because Bem and some parapsychologists got together, and they added some more studies to the Wiseman/Milton one, and they reanalyzed and they decided there was something there.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: At the same time {{w|Dean Radin}}, parapsychologist, published his book in 1997 called ''The Conscious Universe'', which if you want to know the best, strongest argument to make about parapsychology, that book is it. That has chapter after chapter of meta-analyses with odds of trillions to one &mdash; billions to one or trillions to one, typically, he says against the possibility of this being chance. And he does it in every area of parapsychology, so it's an overwhelming type of thing. At the same time, Wiseman published their stuff, his book came out, and he does a meta-analysis of parapsychology, the ganzfeld experiments, too, up to 1997. And he concludes that with odds of a trillion to one against chance they really have been replicated. This is the same time that Wiseman and Milton came out with their meta-analysis and said the effet size is zero, there's nothing there.<br />
<br />
R: How are they seeing things so differently? <br />
<br />
RH: Okay, well that was a mystery at first to me. Then I found two things that go on. This is typical of parapsychologism, unfortunately. One thing, of course, is that if you look at the studies each included, there are some that Wiseman and Milton hadn't included in their meta-analysis, and there are some that Radin had omitted and put in, and this made some difference. And that's one of the problems with meta-analysis, it's a very subjecting thing: what you include and what you don't include. But the main thing is what I call "double dipping", and it goes on a lot in parapsychology. By double dipping, I mean they're having their cake and eating it too. Basically, what he did for his meta-analysis, to show that the studies had been successfully replicated since our debate, he included studies before and during that we had debated over into his meta-analysis along with the new ones.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: So the ones we debated over, we already know that the effect size is big, and if you do that, of course, they being counted &mdash; they raise the effect size. I call it double-dipping.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
RH: It goes on a lot.<br />
<br />
S: Astrologers are famous for that, too.<br />
<br />
RH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: If you find some random effect, and then you include that in your subsequent data so it perpetuates either the bad data or the random effect through the alleged follow-up studies, so it sort of poisons the data.<br />
<br />
B: Isn't that also called the "file drawer effect"?<br />
<br />
S: The file drawer effect is not including studies that are negative, yeah.<br />
<br />
RH: Okay, well the way they handle the file drawer effect &mdash; a better way. The parapsychologists are very sophisticated about all these things. They handle the file drawer effect by using a correction that {{w|Robert_Rosenthal_(psychologist)|Robert Rosenthal}} created, and what they do is they look at the studies that have been published that they have, and they then say "okay, how many studies would have to have been in the file drawer which had zero effect size?", right.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And to neutralize what had already been existing. And you come up with big numbers like with the original ganzfeld studies there were about 42 studies in the original ganzfeld database. When they applied Robert Rosenthal's correction, they decided that would mean something like several hundred, maybe a few thousand studies, would be needed if there were to be a file drawer to neutralize those published studies. And because it is so difficult to run an individual ganzfeld study, they said just very implausible that the file drawer effect could apply to this. Several problems with that, of course. One is that the use of just assuming that all the ones in the file drawer have zero effect size is unrealistic, because probably several of them have to have negative effect sizes.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: And they're just leaving that out by chance. So there's a bias there. But also I did my corrections for file drawer and stuff like that. It's not that clear cut that this is a good correction, that you can correct it that way, anyway. However, it's still means that the existence of a file drawer effect, even if it's small, does add some bais to their effect sizes that they have when they do their meta-analyses.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: Most important thing is that meta-analysis is the stupid thing to do. It confuses what we call confirmatory with exploratory research. A meta-analysis is a good exploratory research type of thing, and to give you one example how un-robust meta-analysis is, the very first meta-analysis ever done in parapsychology was me. I did it. I did a meta-analysis on the original ganzfeld data. That's part of my critique of the work, because I did this meta-analysis, and I'm very sorry I did it, because ever since then all the parapsychologists latched onto it, and the only evidence they have now for any evidence that might be psi, is based on their meta-analyses.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
B: So that was all your fault?<br />
<br />
RH: What's that? Yes, unfortunately, I did the first one, and then they latched onto it. They latched onto it for a very good reason. Remember I found all these flaws in their research, and the flaws continue. Honorton published a paper one time saying, "Look, a flaw is only a flaw if you can demonstrate that it made a difference." So, let's say a study used the wrong statistical test, or they used multiple testing. They did data mining. They did something that's very wrong.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: Lest the critic, the skeptic &mdash; by the way, this another ploy they like to use is putting the onus or burden of proof on the wrong foot.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
RH: They always like to shift it. And so unless the skeptic or the critic can show that the flaw really made a significant difference, then it's not a flaw. That's what I call retrospective sanctification.<br />
<br />
=== ESP Research <small>(45:50)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, Ray, while we're still talking about ESP, I did want to just step back a little bit, because we get bogged down, I think a lot, in the details of the research, and, of course, they are all extremely important, but I also think it's helpful to look at ESP research on the whole, and, for me, always one of the big difference's has been that ESP research isn't building on itself. It isn't moving forward. Is that your assessment as well?<br />
<br />
RH: Yes, I've always said, going back maybe 40 years, I always kept saying that one of the real problems with the field is not cumulative.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: Every generation says "Well, forget about the early stuff that Rhine did, and stuff like that. We know that was bad work. But the new stuff, oh, that's great!" The ganzfeld was like that. That was the new hope that they had, and it's still going. Actually, ganzfeld's been hanging up longer than many other fields. But they've dropped a lot of the areas that were once their big breadwinners.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: They keep changing, and it's not like other fields, where it's cumulative and you build on it.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. There's still trying to just demonstrate that the statistical fluctuations in the data are real, and they're sort of stuck on that first step.<br />
<br />
RH: Right, yeah, well worse than that, they're the only field I know of that has this premises that they are trying to create anomalies. They are trying to find anomalies. In science, anomalies &mdash; by the way, they use this word anomalies ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: ... and they use it in a different way, too. Every word they use, they take from science and use it differently.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they call it "anomalous cognition", right?<br />
<br />
RH: Yeah. But in science, as a whole, anomaly is a very, very well-defined deviation from a theoretical prediction, and you precisely can specify what that anomaly is. For example, when {{w|Alexis Bouvard|Bouvard}} was concerned about, and other people concerned about, the orbit of Uranus, he went and rechecked it over and over again. He found very precise deviations, departure from what it should be according to the Newtonian theory (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
J: Was that Mercury?<br />
<br />
RH: No, Mercury was next, but with Uranus, he finally predicted exactly what kind of a planet, that was Neptune, it turned out to be. It would have to have an orbit, what size it would be, and so on, to reduce that anomaly, to make it no more an anomaly. When parapsychologists use "anomaly", they just simple mean some sort of departure from chance, which can't be explained at the moment.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Something "weird".<br />
<br />
B: It's an artifact. It's an artifact.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so it's kind of like an argument from ignorance.<br />
<br />
RH: It's an argument from ignorance, but it's worse than that. It's what I call a patchwork quilt fallacies involved here as well. My favorite example is that {{w|Joseph Banks Rhine|Rhine}}, by the middle thirties he had created quite a stir, and scientists were interested because he was for the first time claiming all kinds of highly significant results with his card-guessing experiments. In the middle of our lab, about 5 or 10 years into that, he suddenly announced that he discovered a new effect, that shows that psi is real, ESP is real. And that was the ''decline effect''. Well he'd gone back and looked at his own and other parapsychologist's experiements and found that in many cases he found that the beginning of the experiment they would have more hitting than they should be getting, and at the end of the experiment, they would have less hitting than you would expect, and when you put them together, you usually got average, around chance. And that's why people weren't getting as many successful results as they should be.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: So he declared that, and he declared that since no one was looking for that decline effect that was a real effect. Now, it turns out that afterwords, not many people were finding decline effects, but that didn't bother him. If they didn't get a decline effect, they get an ''incline'' effect. That was good, too.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: Or if they didn't get an incline effect or a decline effect but they got something else that was significant, that was fine as well. Which meant that, since they don't specify, they have no positive theory what psi should be.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: They can't tell when psi is not there, so any glitch is grist for their mill. And that's where they are today, too. They can't predict what's going to happen, and if you don't get anything, that's fine too, because that means that there is what's called psi-conducive conditions, and they don't know what they are, and conditions don't allow it to happen. So they're in a wonderful situation that nothing can disconfirm their findings. They get something, even though it wasn't what was predicted, as long as it's a deviation from chance, that's okay. That's another sign of psi. Now this gets to ridiculous proportions, because when I reviewed the autoganzfeld experiments that Bem and Honorton published in Psychological Bulletin, I found some very peculiar things in the data, which indicated to me that there's a real artifact going on there. And Bem's response to my finding of this peculiarity in the data, was "Hey, if this holds up, this could be another effect of psi, and we're going to name it the Hyman effect."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, God!<br />
<br />
S: Any anomaly is a new effect.<br />
<br />
RH: This is what's called the patchwork quilt fallacy, that anything that happens can be claimed as a sign of psi, and if it doesn't happen, that's okay, something else can be claimed a sign of psi.<br />
<br />
J: Why is it always have to be these little anomalies and stuff. I want someone to read my mind, that's it.<br />
<br />
B: That's all they've got, Jay. That's all they got!<br />
<br />
J: Read my mind!<br />
<br />
B: That's all they've got.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but somebody should just stand up one day and say "Enough with these little anomalies and all that crap. Read my mind!" Like do something significant.<br />
<br />
R: Well, that's a big part of it is that they're going through all of these tests, and in the end, even in the best of possible worlds, what they've got is a very, very, very tiny effect that doesn't really mean anything.<br />
<br />
S: It can only exist in very peculiar research conditions, right?<br />
<br />
RH: By the way, "significant" sounds like an interesting term. It's a bad term to use, because it sounds like it's something meaningful, right? "Significant."<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: All it means is that you've got a low probability. The problem there is also they rarely, since they don't specify too clearly in advance exactly the whole what I call the outcome space, you don't know exactly what they were predicting. You don't know how many things they would have looked at ahead of time, so we don't know whether that 5% chance, or whatever it was, really is 5%, because you have hundreds of different things you can latch onto, and you test each one at 5%, you've got a very high probability that at least one of those things is going to end up being significant, in that sense.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: So, it's interesting, that if you go back and read their own literature, as I do, you find that there are papers by parapsychologists. There are two recent ones that stick in my mind where two major parapsychologists have gone through the data in every area of parapsychology, like the ganzfeld and stuff like that, and what they find, over time, the effect size keeps decreasing, ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: ... approaching zero. And that's true in all the areas that they have evaluated, (''laughs'') and now you think they say "Uh, oh, that means we're in trouble. Maybe we've got nothing". No, no, what they do is they begin developing the very elaborate theories of why psi is different, and that becomes a property of psi, that you find something that's useful, a nice effect size, but over time it gradually disappears, and so that's another property of psi.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's the "shyness effect." It likes to hide from experimenters. They also talk about now the "experimenter effect," which means when anyone who is not a true believer does the study or tries to replicate them, they come up with a null effect or a negative result, and "well, that's because you're a nonbeliever."<br />
<br />
RH: Even believers, even some of the major parapsychologists have been unable to get a significant effect. Some parapsychologists claim "our only real finding is the experimenter effect." But think about it. If that's the only real finding, that means that one of the basic premises of other sciences is being abolished as the (''unintelligible'') of scientific data.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: That means that only some people under some conditions, and not even all parapsychologists (''unintelligible'') there going to observe what they're studying, which is very, very weird. By the way, another thing they like &mdash; there are several sobering things you can raise and say, "Hey, this is something very bad about this field." Three of the most sobering things is that parapsychologists always like to say "well, look, you psychologists also have trouble replicating your data, and you have all kinds of problems. We're just as good as you guys are in someways." Well, complement to that is this: every field, including psychology, that claims to be a science, every field that claims to be a science, has several of what Kuhn call paradigm experiments. In other words, we have experiments that we can take and give to students, new students, and say "go do this experiment and you're going to get these results." We have memory experiments, we have sexual experiments, even thousands of them. And every field has this, except one field. That one field is parapsychology.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: Not a single experiment that they can give anyone and say "go do this and you'll get that." Every other field has thousands of them. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: And that already means that, hey, this is a very special field.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Well, that pattern is very familiar to skeptics who deal with these topics, and that's the pattern you see when there's no real phenomenon at the core of the research, when the research is basically looking for something that doesn't exist. And we see that in homeopathy; we see it in dowsing; we see it in multiple, multiple paranormal fields. You see the exact same thing. The same patterns: the better the experiments get, the smaller the effect size. It tends to vanish to zero as the experimental design evolves.<br />
<br />
RH: And the problem here is that the parapsychologist &mdash; what to me, the fascinating thing to me being in a field like this is that most of these parapsychologists almost all of them have a PhD of some sort, and some have actually a name in some field.<br />
<br />
J: What a waste of (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
RH: I'm always fascinated by how these people can fool themselves, you know. How they can convince themselves of this. They have explanations for everything, you know, and so everything you just pointed out, all these weaknesses that we're talking about, this then becomes the property of scientists, and they're using their smarts to outsmart themselves. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah. Now I've also found, and this is definitely true of Marilyn Schlitz, who we had on our show recently, that they really do have a different worldview, and for them, the reason why this little tiny anomaly is important is because if it's real that means the paranormal universe is real. Regardless of how important or big or useful or practical the effect is, it means that all of their belief systems in healing energy, in spirituality, and everything else is justified. It makes everything real to them.<br />
<br />
RH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And, of course, there is a lot of overlap. But, again, like Marilyn, who was talking to us about ESP and may have a PhD, may be a serious researcher, but she also believes in a lot of kooky things, a whole suite of kooky things including energy healing, and it's not a coincidence. And yet at the same time she dismissed our skepticism as what she called an ''a priori'', meaning that "well, we just come from a different paradigm, and that's the only difference between us. We have one paradigm; they have another." Well, that's not the only difference. The difference is in the details of methodology and logic, which, I think, are clearly lacking in this field.<br />
<br />
R: She swore up and down that she wasn't a true believer.<br />
<br />
RH: They love these terms "paradigm", and they love all that kind of stuff.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
RH: And, of course, they're into all the linguistic aspects as well.<br />
<br />
S: Postmodernism in general.<br />
<br />
RH: Postmodernism (''unintelligible''), yeah. There buy all that stuff.<br />
<br />
J: It blows my mind that over and over and over again they keep getting, even at their best fake results that they can come up with, it's so incredibly small and weak that if psi did exist, what good would it be anyway?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but, again, I think it's the whole point is to validate their worldview, not to say that this is a useful, something useful.<br />
<br />
RH: Let me defend them against what you said: "what use would it be?" If in fact they could show that there's something ESP that's really going on there, it doesn't make any difference whether it has any practical effect or not. It would be very mind-blowing for science as we know it. It would be a real challenge. So in that sense, if they did try something like that, it really was an anomaly in the sense that it couldn't be accounted for within the framework of the Einstein/Newtonian worldview or whatever it is, then, I think, it would be a challenge to science as we know it. It would be a very serious something that we have to take very seriously. <br />
<br />
J: So are they all racing to be the first one to find something substantial?<br />
<br />
RH: Now you are touching on another thing, too. That's another thing going on here. I always used to wonder why among parapsychologists, they rarely used to cite one another's work. I realized finally that each one is in it because he or she wants to the "Newton".<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: The one who makes the breakthrough. It's a low, low probability. It's like hitting the lottery, I think, the way they look at it, I'm sure.<br />
<br />
B: But what would it take to turn these little anomalies into a revolution? Something else has to change or be added. You just can't take these unpredictable anomalies and say "Look, I'm going to change science." What else would have to happen? <br />
<br />
RH: Well, Bob, that's a good question. But, you know, there's some sophistcated people in this. That's what attrative about the field. There's some very sophisticated people. When I began in psychology information theory was big thing, and coding theory, stuff like that. And some of these parapsychologists could have given you an answer like this: "Well, look, it doesn't matter how small these anomalies are if they're real. Then we can do coding and decode things and stuff like that." You know, you can do redundancy coding; you do other kinds of coding, and you could turn it into something worthwhile. Many of them are into quantum physics and stuff like that, so they're aware of these things.<br />
<br />
R: Dean Radin has dome outrageous theories of what we'll be able to do in a future where everybody can read each other's minds that's just, it's kind of ...<br />
<br />
RH: He's a fascinating guy to me, too.<br />
<br />
R: That's a really nice way of putting it, Ray.<br />
<br />
RH: What's fascinating about Radin is that he comes through at first as being very sophisticated. He was one of the first to apply what's called neuroprogramming, where the computer programs learn on their own, to work out the patterns and stuff like that. And he applied it to ESP experiments, to Bob Jahn's work on RNG stuff, and he found, sure enough, that we take the first half of the data and train the computer program on the first half of the data, it predicts the second half of the data. So that shows that the data are real, that's there's really something like psi or something going on in the data. To me, what was horrible about it, two things: one was I was fascinated by using a very sophisticated approach, but it took me a little while to realize that data that you already know &mdash; if I take a set of data where I know this set of data, this person's data has a higher proportion of hits, this one has lower proportion of hits. Then I split them in half, I would expect that those halves are going to have higher proportion of hits and lower proportion of hits than the other half. I'm certainly going to be able to clump them together. That's another example of double-dipping.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
RH: You have to predict new, independent data, not data like that. And he never did that experiment again. And his whole career's been &mdash; now I've gone back and looked at a lot of stuff he's done in the ESP field, and he recently has done &mdash; he has some very clever, novel application of technology and the latest in computer sophistication and so on. And yet, he gets results and then he never repeats that. It gets dropped and he goes on to other stuff.<br />
<br />
R: Hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And as a cynic, you wonder what happened there. Why does no one else follow him? Why doesn't he follow-up his own great work, right?<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: And then I found out some other things. When I went through his presentiment work, I went through it and I found &mdash; it took me awhile to find it &mdash; that hey, he's done three experiments, each one replicated the other, but when I go down to the fancy way that he was correcting for baselines and stuff like that, the correction was one way in one experiment, the second experiment was a different correction, the third experiement was a different correction. And then I realized and did some simulations, and the corrections from the first experiment would almost &mdash; and from the second experiment would cancel each other out. In other words, it would give a different result.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RH: And why was he always changing his result, his corrections? Ha, ha, ha. And I realized that this was an unsettled kind of, maybe unconscious or conscious, I'm not sure which, way of making sure you're going to get what you want from the data.<br />
<br />
S: He's making an ''ad hoc'' statistical fix to make the data significant. We call that cheating, right? That's basically just fraud, whether it's conscious or unconscious.<br />
<br />
RH: Well, actually, I have enough experience as a statistical consultant for all kinds of people and groups to realize that people do this and fool themselves. It looks like it's cheating.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RH: You can't be sure they literally cheated. I remember being on a program ''20-20'' opposite {{w|Rosemary Altea}} once, and she kept asking me did I think she's a fraud, and I don't know if she was a fraud. All I can say is that if I were a fraud, I would do exactly what she does.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Ray, we are out of time. I hate to say it. It was a lot of fun talking to you.<br />
<br />
RH: Thank you. I enjoyed it. I'm sorry I rambled. <br />
<br />
S: That's okay.<br />
<br />
R: No, we loved to hear you ramble.<br />
<br />
S: There's so much more actually that I was thinking of asking you that we didn't get to. We'll have to have you back on the show some time.<br />
<br />
RH: Happy to any time.<br />
<br />
B: Great.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Thanks, again. Take care.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks, Ray.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ray.<br />
<br />
RH: Bye.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that was great having Ray Hyman on, and he did tell us that this was his first podcast.<br />
<br />
B: Broke his cherry.<br />
<br />
R: That's awesome.<br />
<br />
S: We got Ray's first podcast.<br />
<br />
B: He is awesome or what, but we only scratched the surface with him. We have to have him back.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we do. We didn't even talk about cold reading, which is his real baliwick, so we have to have him back.<br />
<br />
R: For Ray, we need like an entire day. We need a twenty-four hour podcast, and just have him talk.<br />
<br />
J: He really comes off as a amazingly friendly, intelligent, fun guy.<br />
<br />
R: He is. <br />
<br />
S: He is like the good cop of skepticism, which is amazing why there is so much venom against him, now, because he doesn't believe what they want him to believe.<br />
<br />
J: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: Well we have time for a Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(65:52)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three news items or facts. Two are genuine, and one is fictitious, and then I challenge my esteemed panel of skeptics to decide which one is the fake.<br />
<br />
B: They couldn't come today, but we're here.<br />
<br />
S: But of course I encourage you to play along with us. I have a theme for this week. The theme is cosmology.<br />
<br />
R: That's great!<br />
<br />
J: I guarantee you Bob get's this one right.<br />
<br />
R: I don't know, because I went to hair-dressing school, so I think I've got it.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, I was going to say. I think Rebecca has an advantage over the rest of us on this one.<br />
<br />
R: I'm going to kick your asses, so let's go.<br />
<br />
S: Ready. Number one: physicists have discovered a way to cause light to travel backwards.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, come on. That's just stupid.<br />
<br />
R: (''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Item number two: based upon recent observations of the most distant quasars, physicists have recalculated the age of the universe up from 13.7 billion years to as high as 19 billion years. Item number three: physicists in a recent publication claim to provide evidence for the existence of a contracting universe before the Big Bang. So: light going backwards, recalculating the age of the universe from 13 to 19 billion years, or new evidence of a Big Crunch before the Big Bang.<br />
<br />
J: Jesus!<br />
<br />
S: Jay, go first.<br />
<br />
J: All right, well, of course I'm going first. What sucks about this, and you, in particular, Steve, is that two of them have to be wrong or else I have to kill myself. So ...<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you mean you ''want'' two of them to be wrong, man.<br />
<br />
J: Two of them ''have'' to wrong, man. Yeah, the light traveling backwards makes absolutely no sense to me, but I'm going to just have to say it possible that it's true, because I don't know. The third one has to be false; it has to be. We have no concept of what happened before the Big Bang, none, whatsoever. It is blank void never-to-be-known, and that's it. That's my final answer.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, so you think number three is incorrect, is fake. Ah, Evan.<br />
<br />
E: I'll say that number three is incorrect, as well, for basically the same reason. I don't see how they could have any evidence as to what happened before what is deemed the Big Bang.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: I just don't understand.<br />
<br />
J: Steve did say that somebody published that. That could be true. I think I just caught the snag there.<br />
<br />
E: True.<br />
<br />
J: He didn't say that &mdash; eh, I don't know. I'll stick with three anyway.<br />
<br />
E: Light traveling backwards seems not so outrageous. They do, what? Talk about teleporting light from one place to another, and I've read about that a little bit. Recalculating the age of the universe from 13 billion to 19 billion, okay. Seems plausible. I'll stay with three.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Um, okay. I think that I'm pretty sure I read an article, or maybe I heard somewhere the thing about the light traveling backwards, so I think that's true. And number two just seems too plausible. I don't think you would have &mdash; yeah, I think number two is the fake one, because number three is just &mdash; it's too crazy. You wouldn't have made that up. And it's a cool idea. I like the idea of it, and I think that they could possibly &mdash; you know they're doing crazy things with quantum whatnot. I think that ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: I like to use the technical jargon. I don't mean to speak above the heads of most of our listeners.<br />
<br />
S: You mean the whole sort of general mishmash.<br />
<br />
B: Ahhh! Good one, Steve.<br />
<br />
R: Quantum thingamajig. So I'm going with number two.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, Bob?<br />
<br />
B: I'll say that oh, yes, he would make that stuff up. Number one, I could see that happening. They could do some amazing things with light, depending upon what media it's propagating in. They've caused it to essentially stop and re-create itself in some experiments, so, yeah, that's &mdash; I'd like to read the details about that, but that seems totally plausible to me. Quasars &mdash; the universe 13.7 to 19. Wow! I didn't hear about that, and that's a pretty significant leap. And that would've been my choice, except then you said number three: evidence of a contracting universe before the Big Bang. No. You can't have evidence for that. Relativity and quantum mechanics become nonsensical before &mdash; during the conditions of the Big Bang, there's no way you could predict anything before the Big Bang, let alone a few milliseconds after it, so that's definitely &mdash; that can't be true, unless you snuck in some weasel word in there that I didn't pick up.<br />
<br />
R: So, it's just me, then, huh?<br />
<br />
S: All right, so three of you, the guys, think that evidence before &mdash; of the Big Crunch before the Big Bang is fake. Rebecca thinks that the revising the age of the universe from 13 to 19 billion years is fake, and you all agree that light can go backwards. You have no problem with the whole &mdash; so we'll do that one. That is true. No, that one is true. And you guys all got it. There are lots of funky quantum mechanical experiments that you could make light do all kinds of things under certain conditions. You could make it seem to go faster than the speed of light, to go slower, and, actually, it was predicted that you should be able to make light go backwards, and then, finally, somebody did. This is Robert Boyd of the University of Rochester.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: How did he do it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: It says, yeah, it's weird stuff. Dang if I can understand the actual physics behind this.<br />
<br />
J: Did you say "dang"?<br />
<br />
R: I think he did.<br />
<br />
S: But, uh ...<br />
<br />
E: He's from Rochester.<br />
<br />
R: Didn't they use fiber-optic cables, or something.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, dang, you betcha! They used fiber-optic cables, and what they were able to do is demonstrate that the pulse of light that they were sending through, and, of course, they were doing something to modulate the pulse of light, but the pulse actually gets &mdash; it exits the fiber-optic before it actually even enters it. So it actually travels backward from the source, from the receptor to the source. But, of course, like all of these experiments, which appear to make light travel faster than the speed of light or whatever, information is not traveling faster than the speed of light.<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Information is not traveling backwards, and the laws of relativity really deal with information, but waves can be made to behave or seem to behave in weird ways. So the way they described is that the light wave, the leading edge of the light wave, gets to the end of the fiber-optic cable first, and that leading edge contains all of the information about the light wave itself. Then the light wave sort of gets reconstituted out of that information at the end of the light wave, and it sends a pulse back to the beginning.<br />
<br />
J: I totally don't get it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, there's actually kind of a neat graphic on the website that you can kind of see that happening.<br />
<br />
B: It's pretty cool.<br />
<br />
S: It's weird. But the bottom line to remember is that they're just sort of making waves do bizarre things &mdash; waves of light do bizarre things, but none of these experiments have ever violated Einstein's general relativity, because &mdash; or special relativity, because the information cannot be transmitted faster than the speed of light, and that's the real law.<br />
<br />
J: Yada, yada, yada. Get to the reveal. Tell us what the ...<br />
<br />
S: All right, all right. So, what's it going to be? Let's talk about: physicists in a recent publication claim to provide evidence for the existence of a contracting universe before the Big Bang.<br />
<br />
J: What?<br />
<br />
S: Now, I must admit I was very skeptical of this one when I first read it. I had to read it, but that one is true.<br />
<br />
R: I win.<br />
<br />
J: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Now the evidence, of course, is all theoretical, but this was published ...<br />
<br />
B: Then is it evidence?<br />
<br />
S: Well as much as anything is in cosmology.<br />
<br />
J: What did I tell you, Evan. <br />
<br />
E: Yeah, you said that Becky would get it right. That's what I said, too.<br />
<br />
S: ... published by Abhay Ashtekar, Director of the Institute of Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Penn State University. And he &mdash; basically, what he's saying is that rather than a Big Bang, there is what he is calling a quantum bounce. I wonder if that term is actually going to ...<br />
<br />
B: Stick.<br />
<br />
S: ... take off and replace the Big Bang.<br />
<br />
R: So what you're saying is a quantum thingamajig.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, but ...<br />
<br />
E: Technically. Technically.<br />
<br />
S: He says "We were so surprised by the finding, he added, that the team repeated the calculation for months to include different possible values of some numbers representing the current universe, but the results kept pointing to a bounce." So, basically, they're extrapolating from the physical laws of the universe to suppose what might have come before the Big Bang. And their calculations bear out the model that includes this quantum bounce, and they ran the numbers over and over again, and it keeps coming out that way. So, obviously, this has to be vetted, and the implications have to be assessed by other physicists. This is all still highly theoretical.<br />
<br />
J: I feel totally ripped off right now.<br />
<br />
S: But that's what they're (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
B: How do you predict that when you don't really know what happened right after the Big Bang? How do you extrapolate beyond that when you can't even get to the Big Bang? How do you go beyond the Big Bang?<br />
<br />
E: It's got to be a guess.<br />
<br />
B: I know. "Evidence" was the ...<br />
<br />
S: The articles that I read did not really convey that. So I could not learn that from the sources that I read.<br />
<br />
B: All right, go ahead, Steve, go to two. That one sounded pretty wacky, too.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean, number two I just made up.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, do you really need an explanation?<br />
<br />
B: You know, as wacky as that was, three was even wackier, and you must've known I would have jumped on that one.<br />
<br />
S: I know. Three was the bait here. You guys are right. Saying anything about what happened before the Big Bang certainly seems to defy logic, but this is a method of, again, extrapolating from the way the universe is now. And, again, I don't think that you could probably understand it unless you're a theoretical physicist who understands multidimensional differential calculus.<br />
<br />
E: All right, let's get him on and interview him. We obviously have to know.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we have to some degree see what does the scientific community have to say about this. But, again, the item was that there was a paper published claiming this. So, Rebecca is the sole victor this week.<br />
<br />
R: Yay!<br />
<br />
J: I give you props, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
E: As was predicted by both Jay and Evan.<br />
<br />
J: You did very good Rebecca. I admit it.<br />
<br />
E: So, we get a (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
S: But it means I have to try harder next week.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, Steve, you did pretty good this week, because I would have bet hard cash on this one.<br />
<br />
S: I do try to make it challenging, but it is fun, and Rebecca does get props for getting two in a row correct.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: So, thanks again for joining me. It was a good show. I enjoyed it guys.<br />
<br />
J: You, too, Steve.<br />
<br />
B: Good one.<br />
<br />
J: Ray was fantastic.<br />
<br />
S: Ray was fantastic, and I will say that next week we have James Randi giving us an interview.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
R: The bad cop of skepticism.<br />
<br />
S: Keep an eye out for that one. He's the bad cop of skepticism. We had the good cop; next week is the bad cop, so look for James Randi next week.<br />
<br />
R: Cool.<br />
<br />
S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. <br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9930Template:SGU episode list2015-06-01T21:06:15Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #43 as being transcribed.</p>
<hr />
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|-<br />
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|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 516]], May 30 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_43&diff=9929SGU Episode 432015-06-01T21:05:17Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
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|date = 2015-06-01<br />
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|episodeIcon = File:Hyman.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Pyramid Hoax <small>()</small> ===<br />
* Despite growing criticism from more scientific sources, most mainstream media has still not caught up to the 'pyramid hoax.' Some, like the NYT, are softening up their prior reports.<br/>http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/pyramid-bosnia-1.html<br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== The Unexplained <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>Hi Guys,<br/>First off I'd just to to say that I really enjoy the podcast. I'm always fascinated by the paranormal and I happened to came across your podcast by accident while searching itunes. What a great show. I've realised that I'm also fascinated by the skeptics point of view, and although I really like the idea of a paranormal universe it's nice to get a slap of reality from you guys. Keep up the good work.<br/><br/><br/>So with that in mind I'm curious about you guys. Have you ever come across any paranormal claims that made you think twice? or that you just can't explain?<br/><br/>Anyways, I still have six episodes to catch up on!<br/>Again look forward to hearing from you.<br/><br/>Regards,<br/>David O'Donovan,<br/>Dublin.</blockquote><br />
<br />
=== Science Education <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>Hey guys,<br/>Love the show, listen every week, keep up the good work, yada yada, onto the actual issue:<br/><br/>I hear a lot of people in the skeptical/scientific community talking about what crummy science education standards we have in the U.S., and how most high school text books water down the teaching of evolution, so I thought it might be worth noting one of the exceptions. In our small town of Valdez, Alaska (pronounced Valdeez), the science education is great. My girlfriend is a high school senior, and the longest chapter in her biology book is 'The Theory of Evolution.' There's a separate chapter on human evolution. Also, it doesn't beat around the bush; in the very beginning of the chapter it states that evolution is the single most fundamental theory in all of biology.<br/><br/>And speaking of Valdez, if Perry will be spending any time here, tell him to drop me a line and maybe we can do lunch or something.<br/><br/>Danny McGee<br/><br/>Valdez, Alaska<br/><br/><br/>Here is a negative assessment of highschool biology textbooks by the AAAS:<br/><br/>http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-1/biology.htm<br/><br/><br/>However, there are excellent textbooks out there. Here is one by Ken Miller and Joe Levine, already adopted by a few school systems: http://www.millerandlevine.com/intro.html</blockquote><br />
<br />
=== Scientology Super Powers for real? <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>I looked up the article talking about the perceptics course, but unfortunatly I only found one article that everyone is linking to. Is it a reliable site? Doesnt seem like it. But great topic to discuss, very fun.<br/>Laughed out loud.<br/><br/>Great podcast.<br/><br/>Wendy Bombardi<br/><br/><br/>Here are some further resources on this:<br/>www.holysmoke.org/cos/superpower-building.htm<br/>www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/history/history100.html</blockquote><br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Logical Fallacies<br />
<blockquote>From: DON WALTON<br/>Time for Truth Ministries<br/><br/>Published April 27, 2006<br/><br/>http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/5812.article<br/><br/>'Isn't it amazing what today's scientists can deduce from a mere rock or dust particle? Do you remember the Genesis space capsule? Scientists assured us that this important space mission, designed to gather solar atoms, would eventually enable them to explain the origin of the universe. Unfortunately, the space capsule crashed upon its return to the earth. Its parachute malfunctioned due to the fact that it had been put in backwards. Now I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, scientists who can't figure out which way to put in a parachute have no chance of figuring out the origin of the universe.'<br/><br/>And<br/><br/>'Yet, before we throw our Bibles away, let's remember a similar claim made by evolutionists several years ago. The Coelacanth, discovered in fossil remains believed by scientists to be 400 million years old, was once touted by evolutionists as the 'missing link' between fish and land animals. This prehistoric creature was believed to have possessed both lungs and gills, as well as lobbed-fins and a skeletal and muscular system that enabled it to walk on either the ocean floor or dry land.'<br/><br/>'Today, thanks to the fact that hundreds of them have been caught off the coast of South Africa, the Coelacanth has been nicknamed 'the living fossil.' This so-called living fossil has not only given evolution a black eye, but left evolutionists scratching their heads for an explanation to why the Coelacanth failed to evolve into an amphibian and has remained virtually unchanged for the past 400 million years. Of course, the Coelacanth will eventually evolve, evolutionists assure us, just give it a gazillion years or two.'</blockquote><br />
<br />
== Interview with Ray Hyman <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Ray Hyman has a PhD in psychology from Johns Hopkins U., he taught psychology statistics at Harvard University, and in as expert in self and other deception and evaluating studies involving humans. He is a prominent critic of paranormal research, and wrote the definitive critique of the Ganzfeld experiments.<br/><br/><br/>Author of: Hyman, Ray. The Elusive Quarry : a Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1989)<br/><br/>And Water Witching U.S.A. (with Evon Vogt)<br/><br/><br/>Ray Hyman has been awarded CSICOP's In Praise of Reason award:<br/><br/>www.csicop.org/si/2004-03/ray-hyman.html<br/><br/>Very telling article by a psi-proponent critical of Ray Hyman: www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/rayhyman.html<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
Question #1: Physicist have discovered a way to cause light to travel backwards.<br />
Question #2: Based upon recent observations of the most distant quasars, physicists have recalculated the age of the universe up from 13.7 billion years to as high as 19 billion years.<br />
Question #3: Physicists, in a recent publication, claim to provide evidence for the existence of a contracting universe before the big bang.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9920Template:SGU episode list2015-05-28T13:56:22Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 42 as completed.</p>
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<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
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Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
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Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
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Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
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Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 515]], May 23 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 514]], May 16 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
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<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
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</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_42&diff=9919SGU Episode 422015-05-28T13:54:26Z<p>Jim Gibson: Finish transcription.</p>
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|episodeDate = May 10<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, May 10, 2006. This is your host, Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Hello.<br />
<br />
S: ... Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hello.<br />
<br />
S: ... Perry DeAngelis, ...<br />
<br />
P: Right on!<br />
<br />
S: ... and Jay Novella.<br />
<br />
J: Good evening, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Welcome all.<br />
<br />
R: Hi.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks for joining me again. So today is a podcast of distinction in that this is our one year anniversary, more or less,<br />
<br />
P: Yay!<br />
<br />
B: Ooooohh, we made it.<br />
<br />
S: We crossed the one-year mark. This is our 42nd podcast, and we've been doing this now for just over one year.<br />
<br />
B: And, also, we've been renewed for a second season.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. We've been renewed for a second season.<br />
<br />
R: All right!<br />
<br />
S: So more episodes to come.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, aren't there 52 weeks in a year, though?<br />
<br />
S: When we initially started, we had some kinks to work out and get our schedules in tune and everything, so the first few months we were a little intermittent, but I think for the last like six or seven months, we've been pretty much every week without missing any weeks. So, hopefully next year, we'll put out 52 episodes. We'll try not to miss a week.<br />
<br />
P: We're also flying up on the iTunes download rating system.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. We're up to, I think, 24 at last?<br />
<br />
R: 24. I just checked.<br />
<br />
J: Under the science category.<br />
<br />
S: Under the science category. That's right.<br />
<br />
P: Well, of course.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, but you know, it's the only category that matters.<br />
<br />
P: The meteoric rise has directly mirrored Rebecca's involvement in the show.<br />
<br />
R: ''(laughs)'' Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: She's a great addition.<br />
<br />
R: Glad you noticed that.<br />
<br />
S: So, thanks.<br />
<br />
B: Is that a logical fallacy?<br />
<br />
S: It's a ...<br />
<br />
R: No. Correlation, causation.<br />
<br />
S: Confusing correlation with causation? I think so, yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ''(laughs)'' One and the same.<br />
<br />
S: But thanks to all our listeners out there. You guys have made this quite an experience. Thanks for listening.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== UFO's in the UK <small>(2:11)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: There's a couple of other news items. So, have you guys heard about the UK's pronouncement on UFOs? So they did an official review of all of the UFO data, and they concluded that there are no flying saucers.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
R: Wow!<br />
<br />
P: Outstanding, outstanding.<br />
<br />
R: Next up: Santa.<br />
<br />
B: Well that's it! That's it then. The whole phenomenon's finally over. That's it. All right.<br />
<br />
S: It's over.<br />
<br />
P: This is good.<br />
<br />
R: Call it a day.<br />
<br />
P: Project Blue Blood Book. Was that it?<br />
<br />
S: No. Project Blue Book was a US Air Force investigation.<br />
<br />
P: Project Blue Blood Book.<br />
<br />
S: Blue Blood Book.<br />
<br />
J: Way to miss it, Perry. It just wasn't funny.<br />
<br />
R: Technically, that wasn't a joke, Perry.<br />
<br />
S: That's true. This is a confidential Ministry of Defence report on unidentified flying objects. It was actually completed in 2000, but was just made public through the freedom of information act, and, basically, reveals that the ministry's conclusion was that there is no physical or real phenomenon. There are, basically, no threats to national defense, no threats to collisions with any solid objects.<br />
<br />
P: And no evidence, right?<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's the bottom line. There's no evidence to suggest that there is an alien phenomenon going on. That the evidence suggests that meteors and well-known effects and other phenomenon are responsible for most of the sightings. Although I notice on the BBC article discussing this, they have a picture of a UFO. The caption reads "Meteors may have been responsible for some UFO sightings," yet the picture is clearly not of a meteor.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I saw that.<br />
<br />
S: It's a fake UFO. It looks like a model of a flying saucer. So I'm sure the ufologists are going to get a kick out of that picture with that caption. It's just a complete mismatch. They should have put it on the picture above it. The picture above it ''is'' a meteor. It probably is. It's two little bright dots of a meteor breaking up as it's reentering the atmosphere. That would've been a better picture to put the caption underneath.<br />
<br />
P: Do they have any video of a UFO swinging back and forth?<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, on a wire.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, what started this? Why did they make this announcement?<br />
<br />
S: Well, again, they made the announcement because the conclusion of the report was made public through a freedom-of-information request. It was made by Sheffield Hallam University academic Dr. David Clark &mdash; made the request, so the information became public, even though it was completely six years ago.<br />
<br />
R: Wait a minute. It was a freedom of information request in England?<br />
<br />
S: Apparently. They must have a similar statue.<br />
<br />
R: I didn't realize that.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it said freedom of information act, so it's FOIA, basically the same thing you would call it in this country.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: It's a 400-page report. Pretty comprehensive.<br />
<br />
B: Cool.<br />
<br />
S: Now, of course, we all know this isn't going to change anyone's mind. All of the UFO believers will just call this one big conspiracy cover-up, and it will not, I think, persuade them for one moment.<br />
<br />
R: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: But it's at least good to see that the official report was unbiased and scientific enough to come to a reasonable conclusion.<br />
<br />
=== Scientology Superheroes <small>(5:26)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now Rebecca, again, reading your blog, which for those of you who don't read it, check it out. It's an excellent blog.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: You talked about ...<br />
<br />
P: What's that address for that blog?<br />
<br />
S: We'll have a link on our site. But go ahead, can you say it?<br />
<br />
R: You can link to it from [skepchick.org skepchick.org.]. <br />
<br />
S: skepchick.org.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Recently you've been writing about Scientology, again. Why don't you tell us about that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. I can't get enough of Scientologists, because every time you think that they couldn't possibly get crazier, they get just a little bit crazier. And, so, recently they announced that soon they're going to be opening up a superhero camp. They've got this facility set up in California where people can go and go through all of these different machines to hone their senses, and L. Ron Hubbard established 57 different senses that he calls ''perceptics'', that he feels that if people &mdash; or he felt &mdash; that if Scientologists can build up these perceptics to a high level, they can eventually take over the world ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: ... basically.<br />
<br />
S: Now are we talking and DC Comics or Marvel, here?<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
R: It's actually more of like an independent image kind of comics.<br />
<br />
S: I see.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, you weren't expecting me to follow that, were you.<br />
<br />
S: To you have to wear tights to get into this.<br />
<br />
R: No, but it helps.<br />
<br />
S: Tights are optional.<br />
<br />
R: I've heard Tom Cruise is into the tights.<br />
<br />
S: It's optional, but they all wear them, anyway, right?<br />
<br />
R: Right. They don't have to wear them, but they let them wear them.<br />
<br />
B: I bet they all wear capes, too.<br />
<br />
P: Where do you get the word ''perceptics''? That's a great word.<br />
<br />
S: Gotta love the jargon.<br />
<br />
R: Perceptics. Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The jargon is wonderful.<br />
<br />
R: Yes. It's good.<br />
<br />
S: Now give me an example. What are some of the perceptics that you ...<br />
<br />
R: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: ... can master and become a superhero?<br />
<br />
R: Well, they have some that you might be able to guess, like sound, smell, things like that.<br />
<br />
S: Actual sentences, yes.<br />
<br />
P: Those are the five persecptics.<br />
<br />
R: Yes, the actual senses. And then there are things like &mdash; and I'm not making this up &mdash; one is rhythm.<br />
<br />
S: Rhythm.<br />
<br />
R: Because, you know, when you're taking over the world, you need a little jazzy beat.<br />
<br />
P: A little rhythm. For the caucasion members of the camp.<br />
<br />
R: I was about to say: a lot of Scientologists &mdash; very white. I don't know if anybody's noticed this. Lots of white guys. There's ''personal size''.<br />
<br />
J: What are we talking about here?<br />
<br />
R: That's left open ...<br />
<br />
S: ... to interpretation.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it's not &mdash; who knows what they mean by that? I think I do, but there you go. Right now Tom Cruise is desperately concentrating on something.<br />
<br />
J: What a jackass.<br />
<br />
R: Let's see. Another is saline content of your body.<br />
<br />
S: Salinity.<br />
<br />
R: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "I am the master of salinity!" All tremble in my (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
J: Salt man.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: The best thing I could come up with for that is destroying slugs that happen to be around the house.<br />
<br />
S: Slugs beware! Right?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. I drew a little comic if anybody wants to see it.<br />
<br />
P: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
J: The comic was utterly awful. It was awful.<br />
<br />
S: But is was delightfully awful. It was delightfully awful.<br />
<br />
R: You loved it, and you know it. ''Compass direction''. Perception of conclusions past and present. I don't know. Oh, ''awareness of not knowing'', which ...<br />
<br />
P: Awareness of not knowing?<br />
<br />
B: I wasn't aware of that one.<br />
<br />
R: No.<br />
<br />
S: Awareness of not knowing.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, in your blog, the guy &mdash; I read the article, and the guy saved some kids life because no one else saw this truck barreling down on top of the kid.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, yeah. They were at a crosswalk, and apparently nobody saw a giant truck about to crush a small child, but this guy did.<br />
<br />
B: What a superhero.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and he didn't say he like pulled the kid out of the way. I think he said he just yelled or something. And the kid got out of the way himself.<br />
<br />
J: The thing is, if you try to be more perceptive, you will be.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: It's called paying attention. <br />
<br />
J: Yeah, so how can they judge? Is there any way to test these claims?<br />
<br />
R: You know, I really don't think that they're running through a whole lot of clinical trials over there at crazy international.<br />
<br />
P: Probably not.<br />
<br />
B: Well, here's my favorite superhero power. This one beats them all. Perception of appetite. Come on! What couldn't you do with that? You would always know when you're hungry!<br />
<br />
R: Care for an apple, Scientology man? No, thanks.<br />
<br />
B: I always have a problem figuring out when I'm hungry.<br />
<br />
S: Knowing when you're hungry? Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: When I was reading the article, I thought it was very humorous if you could encounter someone who has no perception of gravity. Wouldn't that be kind of like a drunk person?<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Perception of gravity.<br />
<br />
B: Well, maybe a drunk ...<br />
<br />
S: Well, when you're describing what scientists [''sic''] believe, you have to always parenthetically say "Scientologists really believe this. I'm not making this up."<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
J: That's true. Somewhere, Tom Cruise is sitting on a mountain of money. He's been with some of the prettiest women on the planet. He is amazingly famous and everything, and he is one of the dumbest people that walk face of the Earth. <br />
<br />
R: Yeah, but you're not going to make fun of him when he proves his personal size.<br />
<br />
S: He's brainwashed.<br />
<br />
J: My God!<br />
<br />
S: He'll knock you over in your unawareness of your own gravity. <br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails==<br />
S: Well, let's do a couple of emails.<br />
<br />
=== Tracking Satellites <small>(11:07)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The first one comes from a man named Tracy, and he says "Don't let the name fool you. I'm a guy." All right Tracy. Tracy writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Greetings from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
So he's a local boy.<br />
<br />
R: I've heard of that.<br />
<br />
S: <br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Stumbled across your podcast after listening to part of some other podcast where Lloyd Pye was being interviewed and couldn't believe the absurdity of how we dealt with science. I was looking for a dose of rationality and find it with you folks. In one of the earlier podcasts, you were talking about how various night-sky objects get mistaken for UFOs. There is a great website that tracks the various man-made satellites orbiting the Earth. Put in your location information and you can get a schedule of what is coming up or what has already passed by. I have noticed how some UFO reports coincide with satellite passage. If you get a chance, check out one of the Iridium {{w|Satellite flare}}s when they pass over your area. They are quite spectacular. Some are magnitude -9. The link is www.heavens-above.com.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
He says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Your podcasts have sharpened my critical thinking. I find them to be quite entertaining and as well as informative. However, there has been an unfortunate side effect: my echinacea seems to have stopped working. Keep up the good work and great shows.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, thanks, Tracey. Yeah, I remember reading about the Iridium flares a few years ago, and think I was talking to you about this, Bob, and thinking "Oh, my God! The UFO sightings are going to skyrocket." There just going to go through the roof with these Iridium flares, because these are satellites that actually produce these very bright flares that you can actually see with the naked eye, and it's interesting that you can track them. These are a very good resource for anyone who attempts to investigate UFO sightings. If you do that, what historically has been found is that the more carefully and diligently you look to find a mundane explanation for a sighting, the lower the percentage of unexplained sightings becomes. And some honest researchers in the area, even that may have started out as believers, realize that, you know, if you just investigate hard enough, eventually you explain all of them. Maybe there's a residue of a couple of percent where there's just not enough information to investigate them properly, but no well-documented and investigable sightings that you couldn't explain if you had enough information and you were diligent enough, and this is the kind of resource that you need to use. So, thanks for the link, Tracy. We'll watch the sky for those Iridium flares, and, incidentally, if you're &mdash; Lloyd Pye, I think we did talk about him on a previous podcast. I think it was in the context of the star child project. This guy thinks that somebody found a skull of an alien human-hybrid. I wrote a detailed article about it, which you'll find on the NESS website in our articles page, but Pye is an unadulterated fruitcake. This guy believes everything weird. He wrote the book ''Everything You Know Is Wrong.''<br />
<br />
=== Drinking Water <small>(14:11)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Second email comes from Fred in Québec, Canada, and this is a quick follow-up of, I believe, our last show. He writes:<br />
<br />
Hi, guys. I'm a big fan of the podcast. This week you talked about a spa pamphlet that said we should drink eight glasses of water a day. That sounds like bunk to me. Shouldn't it be the body needs the equivalent of eight glasses of water a day? Don't we get water from the food in juices we take every day? If we get a good nights sleep &mdash; eight hours &mdash; that leaves 16 during the day, so that's one glass every two hours. My guess is that if you try it, you'll feel so bloated you won't do it again. Is it just me or is this bunk? Keep up the good work.<br />
<br />
S: Well, we might have mentioned that as an aside when talking about the spa stuff as, yeah, it's generally a good idea to keep well-hydrated.<br />
<br />
B: But I agree with him, Steve. I have read in a bunch of places where it is kind of a myth. Somebody actually tried to investigate. That's kind of like a common wisdom, something that's kind of very ubiquitous a feeling that, yeah, eight glasses a day. Somebody actually, and I'm sorry I don't have any citations &mdash; but somebody said well, I want to investigate this, and he looked through all sorts of records of experiments and things, and he could not find any reference, ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: ... any experiment or any evidence that, yeah, eight glasses a day is good, and I do tend to agree with him that you do get so much water from your food that you really don't &mdash; I don't think you really do need eight full glasses a day. It's just surprising how much water you get from solid food. I think I read somewhere that a slice of bread is like 40% water, something crazy like that.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and actually Snopes investigated that ...<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ... and found that it was false. You don't need that much, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Baseless. Just baseless.<br />
<br />
B: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely, and, also, it makes no sense. Obviously, the eight glasses a day is a completely arbitrary figure. Who knows what the origin of that is? But people need different amounts of water. It depends on how dry the environment is, how much activity you undertake, what you do eat, how big you are, what your kidney function is like. There's all sorts of variables that you'd have to plug-in to really know how much water you need.<br />
<br />
J: I thought that was just a good average when I've read that a million times. A lot of people were passing around that email about how bad it is on your body to be dehydrated. It was pretty interesting. Some of the things in there sounded really scary, but some of the things that I thought were interesting &mdash; and I've talked with Bob about this &mdash; where if you're hydrated enough, your metabolism actually could increase from it. You can lose weight from drinking enough water.<br />
<br />
S: Only to the extent that it's better if you're not dehydrated.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Over hydrating is not helpful. In fact, it's harmful. It's kind of silly in that we have evolved over millions of years a very, very powerful, precise mechanism for regulating our water. When you need water you know it, because you get thirsty, and if you drink more water than you need you'll pee it out. What I do recommend is that you just listen to your thirst. If you feel thirsty, drink. Just don't go thirsty for a long time. If you want to know if you're getting enough water, actually you could kind of do a rough estimate of what we actually do in the hospital, and that's just look at your urine. If your urine's really dilute, you're getting more water than you need. If it's really dark, you're probably not getting enough water. And if it's somewhere in between, it's probably just right. The only real recommendation that I would make is that if you are going to do extreme conditions, like run a marathon or be out in the hot weather for a long time, then you may want to pre-hydrate a little bit and also just make sure you have access to hydration. You don't want to go a long time in the heat in a dry environment and not be able to hydrate yourself. But that's all common sense.<br />
<br />
R: That's fascinating, Steve. I can't wait to go look at my pee.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Look at your pee everyday.<br />
<br />
R: I'm going to do that right now. Do you guys mind?<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
B: We'll wait.<br />
<br />
J: Do it on air. That's fine.<br />
<br />
S: What's silly is thinking that you have to force yourself to drink more water than you think you need because it's somehow healthy. You're just going to pee it out if you drink more water than you need. And, in fact, there was a recent article &mdash; recent by like four or five months ago &mdash; that showed that marathon runners who like aggressively hydrate themselves, actually hurt themselves, because they dilute out their electrolytes. So, you can overdo the water.<br />
<br />
R: That's why things like Gatorade are often better.<br />
<br />
S: They're a little better. They are. It's still not the same.<br />
<br />
R: Watered-down Gatorade?<br />
<br />
S: You can still overdo. Even Gatorade is not anywhere near the salinity of your blood, so you could still dilute out your electrolytes.<br />
<br />
R: But, Steve, what if you were a Scientologist, and you can control the salinity of your body.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. Then it's not a problem.<br />
<br />
B: There you go.<br />
<br />
R: Well,there you go.<br />
<br />
S: You could make your urine any color you want.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, my God. Greatest super-power ever.<br />
<br />
J: One time I remember I went to Bob's wife now &mdash; her family used to own an ice cream parlor, and one time I went and got a lime ice that he made there, and the food coloring he used did not metabolize, and I thought that I was really sick. I'm like "oh, my God! Something's wrong!" And then it was "wait a minute. I ate something green yesterday."<br />
<br />
R: Fascinating.<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have a wonderful interview with Eugenie Scott, so let's go to that interview now. <br />
<br />
== Interview with Eugenie Scott <small>(19:36)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is {{w|Eugenie Scott}}. Dr. Scott is the director of the National Center for Science Education. She's the author of the textbook ''Evolution versus Creationism'', and for the last 20 years or so she has been at the forefront of the battle between teaching science and evolution and against attempts at promoting creationism and intelligent design in our public schools. Genie, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
ES: Thank you, nice to be here. <br />
<br />
S: Thanks so much for talking with us tonight. ˙<br />
<br />
=== Creationism and Intelligent Design <small>(20:09)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, this is a topic that we deal with quite frequently on this show. Creationism and intelligent design is one of our favorite pseudo-sciences, so just tell me, since you're on the front lines, how do you think we're doing? How is the fight going overall?<br />
<br />
ES: Well, at the National Center for Science Education we sometimes feel like the red queen. We're running as hard as we can to stay in the same place.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ES: We do get ahead of the pack every once in a while, and in this last six months or so there have been some notable successes for what I would consider the good guys side in this. Clearly the one that most people would have in mind, if they're thinking about this, would be Kitzmiller versus Dover, the federal district court case about ...<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
ES: ... the policy in Dover, Pennsylvania. That was definitely something that boosted all of our enthusiasms. But also some other issues which might not have made everybody's newspapers, shortly after the Kitzmiller decision, the state of Ohio rescinded a very bad policy that it had in it's state science education standards as well as a model curriculum that, basically, was a shill for intelligent design, and that certainly was very, very positive, because changes in science education curriculum around the country are one of the major ways that the anti-evolutionists have utilized in the last several years to try to advance their cause.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right. It certainly seemed to me after the Kitzmiller decision, that a lot of the grassroots creationist efforts were in a little bit of a retreat. A lot of the decisions by school boards or whatever to introduce either wishy-washy language or anti-evolution language was withdrawn or pulled back, almost as if they were intimidated a little bit by this decision. Is that your sense as well?<br />
<br />
ES: Well, yes and no. I think after Kitzmiller, partly because the Kitzmiller decision was just so solid. You can read it on our website as well as transcripts and witness statements and lots of other goodies. But if you take the time to at least just skim through this decision, it is just so solid ...<br />
<br />
P: Scathing.<br />
<br />
ES: ... against intelligent design as science. I mean it's quite, quite wonderful. I think there was a slight period of disarray, but I keep trying to remind people that even though we're all fixated on intelligent design these days, because it's been in the paper, it's actually in many respects a more interesting kind of anti-evolutionism, don't forget that approximately half of the country, according to just about any poll you go to, rejects the idea of evolution, and the major and largest anti-evolution movement is still the somewhat more old-fashioned, if you will, creation science movement. Creation science is still the larger movement. It has more organizations; it has more money; and it reaches more people than intelligent design does. Intelligent design is fun, because it's tossing around information theory and molecular biology and stuff like that, but, I tell you, the traditional creation science people are far, far more influential. Well, just this last &mdash; earlier the same week that we're recording this, a small school district in southeastern Missouri invited an evangelist down from the Answers in Genesis creationist ministry to do a full school assembly on Monday morning about the problems of evolution, the problems of origin of life, and although I haven't seen any tapes or haven't &mdash; actually, I've been on the road myself, so I haven't talked to anybody about what actually happened, but I suspect that he never mentioned the Bible once. I suspect he just went out there and trashed evolution; left the students with the idea that "Wow, evolution is really in tough shape scientifically. Gosh, I guess if evolution didn't do it, God did it."<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ES: So, you know, this whole trashing of evolution, the evidence-against-evolution approach, which you were asking where we are going next. Well, that's the next frontier. This has been part of the anti-evolution movement for a long time. Given the court reversals for creation science and intelligent design, it's only going to become stronger, and it's harder to deal with from a legal standpoint.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
R: Genie, I'm a little surprised. I didn't even realize that the creationists had separated themselves from the intelligent design movement so cleanly. Do they not interact at all?<br />
<br />
ES: There's an interesting symbiosis between the two. In terms of content, as we showed very, very clearly in the Kitzmiller case, and you can read all about it. Intelligent design is just a subset of the ideas of creation science in the sense that there's nothing in intelligent design that wasn't already present in creation science, but intelligent design doesn't say anything about the age of the Earth or the Grand Canyon being cut by Noah's flood and some of the other, more off-beat ideas that creation science promotes. And for the last, well, 10 years or so, there's been this uneasy peace between the two, where the intelligent design people have said "Look, let's just set aside biblical creation for a while, and let us all link arms against evolution, and once we've vanquished evolution, then we can have a nice polite argument amongst Christians about how old the Earth is."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ES: And I think part of what happened was the intelligent design folks started getting all the attention, and I think there might have been a little bit of jealousy on the part of the traditional creation science folks, who basically supported them. And now they're starting to withdraw a little bit, claiming that the ID movement is insufficiently biblical. It's really not bringing people to Christ. It doesn't go far enough, and yet what we find over and over &mdash; we found this certainly in Dover, we find it in Kansas. I can give you any number of communities where people who used to call themselves creation science supporters morphed into intelligent design supporters, and, if they've gotten the memo from the leadership of the intelligent design movement now, they're now morphing into critical analysis of evolution supporters and other kinds of euphemisms.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
ES: Oh, yeah honey, this is not over. It's not over in Dover.<br />
<br />
R: The marketing efforts are just getting slicker, which is what's disturbing, I think.<br />
<br />
B: Well, it's evolving.<br />
<br />
ES: Oh, yeah. This is classic. If you ever have understood adaptive radiation as a biological concept, you see it here. Given the changing legal environment, it's necessary to adaptively radiate into new strategies. You're seeing it clearly.<br />
<br />
R: Do you think that they're better at marketing than us?<br />
<br />
ES: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And if you really want to see some good examples of this, go to the Discovery Institute.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ES: One of the things that I like to call to people's attention, just because it's amusing in a way, is this great enthusiasm that folks &mdash; you know the Discovery Institute? That's the main think tank for intelligent design.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, yeah.<br />
<br />
ES: Okay. Well, just in case all the folks listening to us didn't know that, it's probably good to let them know right away. But over at the Discovery Institute they seem to have this fixation on Darwinism and the Darwinists, the dogmatic Darwinists doing this, and Darwinism says that, and it's almost like a tic with these folks. They can't seem to write a paragraph or maybe more than two or three sentences without putting Darwinism or Darwinist in it. And they use it as an epithet.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ES: And, of course, I was just up at the University of Washington, and I was playing with my audience a little bit, and I said "Okay, raise your hand if you've ever gone to a scientific conference." Of course, a whole bunch of hands went up because this is sponsored by the science departments, right? So, yeah, there must've been 75 hands went up in the audience. I said "Okay, keep your hands up if you've ever walked up to another scientist at a conference and said 'Hi, I understand you're a herpetologist. I'm a Darwinist.'" And everybody just laughed, and, of course, all the hands went down, because we don't refer to ourselves as Darwinists, right?<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ES: We refer to ourselves as evolutionary biologists. But ''Darwinist'' is a practitioner of ''Darwinsim'', and Darwinism is an ''ideology''. And ideologies are ''bad''. That's like communism or racism or maybe even feminism. But ideologies are bad. ''isms'' are bad. They've got nothing to do with science, and isn't it terrible that Darwinism is an ''ism''. They want to equate evolution with atheism, ...<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ES: ... and one of the ways that they do this rhetorically is by this compulsive use of this epithet ''Darwinism'', and it works because if you &mdash; actually I was on a radio show with {{w|Michael Behe}} a couple of years ago, maybe just last year, and he was doing this "Well Darwinists do this and Darwinism says that," and I said "Hey, Mike, what do you mean by Darwinism?", and Mike kind of stopped for a minute, because he didn't know what I was talking about, and the host said "Oh, he means evolution." Bingo! And that's exactly the point.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ES: To the general public, Darwinism is the same thing as evolution. So if you make an ''ism'' out of it, then that further taints the idea of evolution with ideology, with atheism, and so forth. So, rhetorically, they do really well.<br />
<br />
S: They're very slick. But they're coming out of a tradition that has itself evolved over centuries to be very appealing to human psychology. So, they know what they're doing. Religions have evolved over thousands of years, right?<br />
<br />
ES: Well, I think in terms of American culture, though, the best thing they have going for them is their fairness argument.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ES: "Well, let's give the students all the evidence and let them make up their own mind. Wouldn't you want the students to know all of the information about evolution? Not just the evidence in support of evolution, which they properly should teach in the public schools, but also the evidence against evolution. The strengths and weaknesses of evolution." I mean, most Americans think "Wow, that sounds pretty good. Yeah, why don't we do that in our schools?" And yet if you were to say to parents, "Why don't we teach our students the strengths and weaknesses of the germ theory of disease?" They would probably say "Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do that."<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ES: Even though there really aren't any weaknesses to the germ theory of disease. (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Weaknesses of gravity.<br />
<br />
ES: Yeah. The intelligent design people keep running these (''unintelligible'') poll. They've run it in Ohio and they've run it in a few other places, where they &mdash; one of the questions that they ask is "agree or disagree that students should be taught the strengths and weaknesses of Darwin's theory of evolution," and, of course, they get 70, 80% say "Yeah, we should." I'll bet if you were to ask those same respondents &mdash; any sample of 1200 Americans around the country &mdash; students should be taught the strengths and weaknesses of phlogiston theory, you would get the same high percentage, because what you're testing there is not people's skepticism about evolution. What you're testing there, what you're polling, is the American cultural tradition of fairness and fair play and equality, which are very good cultural traditions.<br />
<br />
P: You mention American culture a few times there, Genie. Is this whole problem specific to the US? We have listeners from around the world. Is it an international problem, or is it a US phenomenon?<br />
<br />
ES: And your listeners around the world are scratching their heads and saying "What's wrong with those Americans?"<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
R: They're used to thinking that.<br />
<br />
ES: That's what I always get from foreign reporters whenever they dog me: "What's wrong with you? Why is this big technological nation ...?" Yeah, basically the short answer is "Yes." There are very small creationist movements bubbling up hither and yon, generally speaking in places where you've got a strong evangelical Protestant Christian missionary movement. So, Korea is a place where you have a small creationist movement. There are a lot of evangelical Christian Koreans. You find it in Canada, especially up in the Prairie provinces. You find that there's a small movement in Australia. It's not great, but it's still around. And I would imagine that it's growing in Russia, the former Soviet Union countries, because they are being flooded with evangelical Christians who are there to teach them English. Everybody wants to learn English, but, of course, along with the English they also get the creationism and other kinds of nonsense. Actually, that is the single most common question I get after a public lecture. "Is this going on any place else?" I actually wrote an article very recently to sort of explain why we have this problem here, and it was just published in Cell. You can get it online. They very kindly made it available. The title of it is something like ''Anti-evolution: It's the American Way''. And we could take up the rest of the podcast on this, but the short answer is that there is historical reasons for it, there's idiosyncratic reasons for it, there's reasons having to do with the settlement patterns of the United States, but probably the single most important reason is that it was in the United States, back in the 19 teens of the last century that a specific conservative Protestant movement called fundamentalism began. People don't realize that biblical literalist Christianity is a fairly new thing. That Christianity they have on the continent: Catholicism, Lutheranism, even most of the Calvinist traditions in northern Europe and certainly the Church of England &mdash; these are not literalist traditions. It was pretty much American evangelical fundamentalists following the twelve fundamentals, as the booklets were called back in the early 1900s, that established this kind of back-to-Genesis biblical literalistic tradition, which, because it's so popular in the United States, we think that it's ubiquitous. We associate, many of us associate this with Christianity, but it's really a minority position within Christianity. And that's why you don't get this in England, and you don't get this on the Continent, because their Christian traditions say "Nah, what do you mean six twenty-four hour days. That's nonsense. Genesis is allegorical."<br />
<br />
P: Thank God.<br />
<br />
ES: So to speak.<br />
<br />
S: So it's good, old just historical contingency. The movement grew up here, took roots here, and thrived.<br />
<br />
ES: And never was terribly popular elsewhere. It hasn't been a terribly successful export, except very recently. In the late 20th century, it was getting a little bit more of a purchase in, say, Africa, and with the collapse of Catholic liberation theology in Central and South America, the Protestant missionaries are gaining a foothold in parts of Latin America, where formally it was totally Catholic. In Brazil, for example, Protestantism is the fastest-growing denomination, and the one little flareup that we had in Brazil in the summer I guess it was of 2004 (it's on our website &mdash; I forget exactly the age &mdash; so much creationism, so a little time) that this little blip that we had in Brazil a couple of years ago was because in Rio de Janeiro province the education minister pretty much says "here's the curriculum; thou shall teach it," and she decided that evolution wouldn't be thought, and she just happened to be one of that 16% or whatever it is of Brazilians who are evangelical Protestants. So, we may be seeing more of this in the future as conservative Protestant Christianity increases around the globe.<br />
<br />
S: Now, what do you think of the notion, which is something that I've always felt, that it's also partly self-fulfilling in that the creationist movement in this country has eroded to a large degree the quality of teaching evolution in the public schools if, for no other reason, by intimidating textbook companies into watering down their treatment of the topic. So they've basically manufactured a public ignorant of evolution, and that's given them more fertile waters in which to stir up apparent negativity about it. <br />
<br />
ES: Oh, absolutely. No the assault against evolution began right after the {{w|Scopes trial}} in 1925. According to the historian Ed Larson, by about 1930 evolution was effectively gone from the high school curriculum. It was taken out of textbooks. Everybody thinks Scopes won. No, Scopes lost, and science education lost, because evolution became a controversial subject, and textbook publishers decided they'd sell my books if they didn't have evolution as a prominent component of the textbooks. And so they just took it out. And it actually didn't come back until the 1960s.<br />
<br />
S: So Sputnik, right?<br />
<br />
B: Sputnik. Didn't that the resurgence of interest in science.<br />
<br />
ES: Sputnik was very important in focusing attention at the federal level on the need to improve science education. Would be we could have something comparable, because we certainly are greatly in need of improvement of science education.<br />
<br />
S: There's talk about with China and India, so maybe that competition will spur some more science education, but we'll see.<br />
<br />
ES: Well, the thing about China and India is that we have been, we in the United States have been the extremely fortunate recipients of their brain drain. They send their best and brightest over here to be trained, and a whole lot of those young people stay on as postdocs and as future professors and people who labor in the vineyards of biotech and computer technology and the other science-related industries and businesses. Now this is not a xenophobic kind of statement, because, like I say, I think we've been enormously lucky to have benefited from their intelligence and their work ethic, and what's bad about that? The only thing that's negative is that, as you were saying, things are getting better in India and Taiwan and China, and so a lot of these really bright young people, young professionals, well-trained are thinking "Hm. I could be near my family and work in a biotech field."<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ES: And so a lot of these young folks in the next 10 years are going to go home, which means that we're going to have a big hole in our science and technology pipeline. Are we going to have enough well-trained Americans to fill that? I don't think so. Already, we graduate only 20% of the number of engineers that China graduates.<br />
<br />
R: Wow!<br />
<br />
ES: So there's a whole lot of reasons for us to improve science education, one being to improve the pipeline so that we can continue our technological domination of the world, for better or for ill. At least Americans have certainly benefited from that. And number two, something I've been concerned about all my life, is just general science literacy.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ES: We are living in a highly technological, industrial economy, and we're a democracy, and citizens make decisions about issues, many of which involve science. Are they making those decisions based upon information, based upon careful consideration of data and empirical evidence, or do they lack the ability to consider that evidence? And that is a very good reason to argue for general science education, just to improve the overall science literacy of our public.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
=== Project Steve <small>(41:19)</small>===<br />
S: So, Genie, before we go on to another topic, I wanted to bring up ''Project Steve'' for a couple of reasons. <br />
<br />
ES: (''laughter'')<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
S: For the listeners, the creationist &mdash; I can't remember if it was the creations or the intelligent designers &mdash; but they came out with their list of scientists who are skeptical of Darwinism, and they a couple of hundred ...<br />
<br />
ES: There we go with Darwinism, again.<br />
<br />
S: ... yeah, with Darwinism &mdash; and there were a couple hundred names on there. So just to show how insignificant this whole thing was, some scientists put together a list of scientists who support evolution, and the kick was that these were all scientists named "Steve" or "Stephanie." So, which is about 1% of the scientific population. So you could multiply those numbers by 100, and I believe we're up to seven or eight hundred by now.<br />
<br />
ES: Oh, I think on the Steve List I think 750 something. I mean, we're way up there.<br />
<br />
S: 750? Right, so that means there's ...<br />
<br />
ES: 75,000.<br />
<br />
S: ... 75,000 scientists supporting evolution to the one or two hundred that signed that they're skeptical.<br />
<br />
ES: I think they're up to 500, now.<br />
<br />
S: 500.<br />
<br />
ES: The problem with ID? The problem with the Discovery Institute is they suffer from irony-deficiency anemia. They don't ''get it''.<br />
<br />
S: They don't get it.<br />
<br />
ES: We did Project Steve as a parody of this "100 scientists doubting Darwin". So we got 200 scientists accepting evolution, all named Steve, right. And you'd have thought that at that point they would've gotten embarrassed enough that they would stop collecting names, but they just don't get it. So they went on, and after four years, they managed to scramble up 500 names, and they had this big press release a few months ago about "Oh, we're up to 500 names, now." Well, we're not even trying to recruit Steve's and Stephanie's anymore, but they just keep coming in over the transom, you know. "Oh, we heard about Project Steve. Gee, can I be a Steve." So, maybe after this podcast we'll get yet more PhD Steve's and Stephanie's, so you all go ahead and sign up. You get a cool tee-shirt.<br />
<br />
S: Of course, the reason why I bring it up was I was one of the original 200 Steve's. I have my tee-shirt.<br />
<br />
ES: You have the collectors-item black tee-shirt.<br />
<br />
S: yes. Absolutely.<br />
<br />
B: Sell that on E-bay.<br />
<br />
S: With twelve names on the back. <br />
<br />
R: I'm seething with non-Steve jealousy.<br />
<br />
S: You have some Steve envy?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I have Steve envy.<br />
<br />
S: And I'm just lucky. I think they chose Steve just to honor Stephen Jay Gould, ...<br />
<br />
ES: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: ... which is appropriate.<br />
<br />
ES: But also because Steve is such an iconic American name.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ES: The ''Tao of Steve'' and ''Steve McQueen'', and Steve is just American.<br />
<br />
R: It's just a funny name.<br />
<br />
B: I thought Bob was.<br />
<br />
R: It's a good, go-to, punchline name.<br />
<br />
ES: Exactly. Exactly. That's it. It's got all sort of cultural reference here.<br />
<br />
R: If you didn't do Steve, you would've done Larry, you know. Larry is another good name.<br />
<br />
ES: Good question. What would we have done? But Steve makes sense. Actually, the person who suggested it was named Steve, and so, possibly, that might have been slight self-aggrandizement there.<br />
<br />
S: My favorite, though of course, is the Steve Song.<br />
<br />
ES: Oh, yes!<br />
<br />
S: A Monty Python-esque song about Steve's believing in evolution.<br />
<br />
ES: (''singing'') "Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, ..." Quite silly. That was the Australian Robin Williams. The same as the American comedian, but he's a broadcaster in Australian and a skeptic and a funny guy. He interviewed me at the AAAS meeting. He always comes with his reel-to-reel recorder, speaking of technology, and records &mdash; gets a bunch of stories from the American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings, and then goes back and turns them into programs for his broadcast. Yeah, Williams is a great guy. When he did the story on Project Steve, some of the guys in his office just thought that was such a great story that they came up with this four-part harmony on the Steve Song. We have had more damn fun with this Project Steve. This is just the gift that keeps on giving.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ES: I did, at the AAAS meeting &mdash; do you know the Ignobel prizes? <br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Of course.<br />
<br />
R: I was actually at the last ones. They were great.<br />
<br />
ES: Yes, lucky you. Well, at one of Mark Abraham's Friday night Ig shows at the AAAS meeting, he usually does just this little funny thing &mdash; shows some clips from the 80s, and I did a little PowerPoint presentation on the morphology of Steve, which I then wrote up, and I am so proud &mdash; you know, I've published things in Science and I've published things in Reviews in Nature, and I've got a lot of publications, but I am so proud to have been the author of an article in the Journal of Improbable Research.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah. That's about as good as it gets.<br />
<br />
ES: This is truly the highlight of my career. It's "Scott, et. al" ''On the Morphology of Steve''. It is an article where we realized that &mdash; Glenn Branch in my office realized that we had the names and addresses of the Steve's and Stephanie's from all over the country, all over the world, really, because we've got Europeans and Australians. We had &mdash; of course, we said "what's your tee-shirt size?", right? Because we sent these people a tee-shirt, and so we had a measure of body size, assuming small people chosen small tee-shirts, and so. So we did this ridiculous analysis of correlating tee-shirt size &mdash; small, medium, large, extra-large, and tent &mdash; across geographic area. And we did {{w|Bergmann's rule|Bergmann's}} and {{w|Allen's rule}} and island biogeography. We discovered, by the way, that island Steve's are smaller than mainland Steve's. And so island dwarfism occured in Steve's just as other mammals.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ES: This is so silly. I published this wonderful paper, I and 426 co-authors. The 426 co-authors, of course, being the Steve's of Steve.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
ES: I'm co-author of an article with two Nobel laureates and Stephen Hawking. Not too many people can say that.<br />
<br />
R: I think you're going to have to change your name to Steve, just to ... No.<br />
<br />
ES: People have written us and said "If I change my name to Steve, can I be ..." "I'm sorry. You have to have a PhD and your name has to be Steve. No, we're not going to do a Project Bob."<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: That would skew the data, if people started changing their names. That's not fair.<br />
<br />
ES: Well, I don't know.<br />
<br />
=== Debating Creationists <small>(48:02)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Let me talk to you a little bit about debating creationists.<br />
<br />
ES: Ah, yes.<br />
<br />
S: For anyone involved with arguing against creationist, promoting evolution, and scientific skepticism in general, eventually gets the itch to debate creationists. We've had emails to us saying "Oh, we would love it if you guys would go head-to-head with one of these IDers or creationists on the show." But I know your position on this a little bit, that you think that it's kind of a double-edged sword and, in general, can be a bad idea. What's your current opinion about the whole notion of debating creationists?<br />
<br />
ES: Well, you know, I'm the last person on the planet to say we should ignore these folks, right? That's my day job. So I feel very strongly that scientists and other people who take time to learn about these things should counter the false claims of the antievolutionists. Now, that said, do it in an effective way.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ES: Debate is a sport. Debate is not how we do science. The classic kind of debate, where you have person A on one side of the stage and person B on the other side of the stage, and A goes for an hour and B goes for an hour, and then A rebuts &mdash; the audience is comatose by that time, anyway. But those kinds of classical debate setups mislead the public about what science is all about, because science really isn't about two people standing on opposite sides of this stage and declaiming. It misleads the public in terms of the huge amount of scientific support for evolution, because visually and what is kind of communicated just by the gestalt of the whole operation is A and B, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whereas if this was proportionate to the actual support of evolution within the community, there would be tens of thousands of scientists on the evolution side of the stage, and a paltry few over there on the other. Anybody who sort of gets the itch to debate, and I hear from these folks. Generally what I hear is somebody writes and says "I have accepted an offer, a request to debate a creationist at my school. Can you help me?"<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ES: Well, come to me first. What I want people to think about is: what are your goals, and what are the goals of your opponent? And is this activity, whether it's a debate or a panel or what, is this activity going to achieve his goals or mine? I do directly appear with creationists. I'll do radio shows. I'll do panels. I will appear with creationists, but the setting and the circumstances have to be such that my goals are met, or that at least there's a chance. A classical debate setting is not going to work.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it totally rigs the game against us.<br />
<br />
ES: Particularly at a church, somewhere. Particularly in a setting where the other side is going to be bussing in large numbers of supporters for the creationist. Now think about what actually happens. I'm assuming that our goals &mdash; people on our side of this issue &mdash; our goals for one of these exchanges is to try to educate the public about evolution, about the nature of science, and support the teachers in their effort to continue teaching good science in the schools, and keep creationism out. That seems to be a reasonable goal. If you agree to debate, one thing that will happen is your opponent will get a much larger audience, and those supporters aren't really listening to you, no matter how good you are. I actually have a little article that I wrote years ago called ''Debates and the Globetrotters'', where I compared the creation-evolution debate to a Globetrotter game, where the creationist is the Globetrotters and the evolutionist is the ...<br />
<br />
R: Oh, man! The Generals?<br />
<br />
ES: ... whatever it is.<br />
<br />
R: The Generals never win. Oh, man!<br />
<br />
ES: And, you know, the opposing team that they take around with them, generally consists of some pretty good ball players. They are ex-college players or something like that. Now I think they're called the International All-stars or something, whatever. But the team that the Globetrotters beat up on get off some good shots, but nobody pays any attention, because you're there to watch the Globetrotters, right?<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ES: And this is exactly what a creation-evolution debate is also. The audience is there to see their champion, and what happens is they get all revved up, they get all excited about this wonderful science of creationism, and then they go home and they make life miserable for teachers. Now, is this our goal? Is this really advancing our cause?<br />
<br />
B: Wow!.<br />
<br />
ES: I think most of the people who get all excited about debating creationists, ought to think about their egos, and if this is the best way to assuage them, and I would like them to take up another hobby, because assuaging their ego or making them feel good "Because I really pounded that creationist into the soil". They all seem to fell they win. They never win. They always lose. They always lose in terms of the way the audience hears the arguments and what the audience does with the information once it gets it. You often hear "But nobody at my university will defend science, so I had to do it." Baloney! If a creationist comes and says "Nobody at University X would debate me," so what!<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ES: Whose he going to say it to? He's going to say it to forty people in a church basement who agree with him anyway. What a lot of universities have done is gotten the word out to the science faculty "No, don't debate so-and-so when he comes. This is a waste of time. Yes, we all understand this. This is fine." And just write a little paragraph to that effect, saying that "We don't feel that a public debate is the appropriate way to educate the public about the nature of science and evolution. We have examined the position presented by {{w|Kent Hovlind}} or whoever the creationist is, and we find that that is severely lacking is scientific credibility. He should be making his arguments to the scientific community, not to public school boards." And then, if the claim is made that the professors at University X were afraid to debate, just show them the statement. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I completely agree with you, although I think last year that sentiment was applied to confronting creationists in the courtroom, and there was at least one court case where the scientific community essentially declined ...<br />
<br />
ES: Yup! Absolutely,<br />
<br />
S: ... to give testimony.<br />
<br />
ES: Okay, it absolutely was the best move, and let me tell you why. Because A) this was not a court situation. What you're talking about is the kangaroo court in Kansas.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, right, right, yeah, right.<br />
<br />
ES: This was a hearing that was sponsored by creationists on the Kansas Board of Education. This was evolution on trial. They were going to bring in famous evolutionists and famous intelligent design supporters, and the proponents of each side would be interviewed by lawyers. Well, could you imagine a bigger waste of time then that? A) there were no rules. Don't compare the kangaroo court with what happened in Harrisburg in the Dover trial, ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
ES: ... because the Kitzmiller versus Dover was a real opportunity for intelligent design to present in a situation where there were rules, where there was great transparency on all sides. I mean, yes, everybody says "Wow, this was a long trial. It took six weeks." No, it didn't; it took a year. We started working on the Dover trial with the Dover lawyers &mdash; well, actually, before they even filed. Once they filed, we helped them select witnesses. We help prepare witness statements. We helped prepare the witnesses for their depositions. We helped prepare the lawyers to depose the intelligent design proponents. We helped prepare our witnesses and the lawyers for the actual courtroom activities. Everybody knew what everybody had said in the depositions. Everything was on the table. It wasn't this kind of free-for-all "Let's beat up on evolution" that the Kansas kangaroo court was. So, the whole structure of the event in Kansas was not at all anywhere near parallel to an actual evaluation of intelligent design. And, of course, the Kansas situation was wrong from the get-go, because it was evolution on trial.<br />
<br />
S: It was a sham, basically, is what you're saying.<br />
<br />
ES: It was an absolute sham. It was an absolute sham. Geographers don't defend the spherical earth.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
ES: Evolutionary biologists don't defend evolution, and this is exactly what they wanted us to do, and, so, I supported the Kansas Citizens For Science strongly in their decision not to participate, and I was extremely proud of the scientific community for realizing why this was a bad idea. You don't know how many letters they sent out to the Kansas Board of Education &mdash; just wrote to just about everybody whose name has appeared in the newspaper in association with the creation-evolution controversy, and bless their little hearts, they all hung in there and said "No, no. We don't think this would be a worthwhile activity." So, basically, the sham went on at a great deal of expense, by the way, to the taxpayers of Kansas, which they didn't like very much.<br />
<br />
S: Although, unfortunately, I don't think that the mainstream media really made that clear, that this hearing was a put-up job.<br />
<br />
ES: We tried very hard, and some of the media did get it, but not all of them did. And, of course, the conservative media, the media that favors the creationist position, they, of course, (''unintelligible''). But we and the Kansas Citizens For Science did work very hard to try to help the media understand, and, actally, the Kansas Citizens For Science scientists and citizens were there at the hearing in the hall, and so the reporters who actually covered the hearing, they got it.<br />
<br />
P: Genie, what's the current status in Kansas? Do you know?<br />
<br />
ES: The State Board of Education has, unfortunately, passed some very inferior science education standards where they've redefined the definition of science so that it is not restricted to natural cause, and have scattered throughout the science education standards document all kinds of bad science that calls into question whether evolution is valid and so forth. It's the evidence-against-evolution approach, and those are the standards that are extant right now. But what is actually happening that is of more interest is that various citizens in Kansas who really don't want the current school board to create any more problems for science education are working very hard to get moderate candidates to run for state school board, because three of the creationists are up for election this coming fall. What I hear from the Kansas Citizens For Science is that they do have good candidates, and they're trying to get people to campaign for them, and so forth.<br />
<br />
P: We saw what happened to the school board in Dover. Out.<br />
<br />
ES: Yeah, pretty much.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
ES: If the bad guys are voted out, so to speak, in Kansas, then when they take office in January, they may do, basically, what their predecessors in the year 2000 did when the bad school board members were voted out and more moderate ones were voted in, and just basically rescind the old standard, which would be the best thing.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this is like a repeat of what happened five years ago.<br />
<br />
ES: That's right, exactly.<br />
<br />
S: It's probably just going to cycle, then they'll lose interest, and the creationists will worm their way back in, and they'll cycle back again.<br />
<br />
ES: Well, my friend John Stavor said back in 1999 "Democracy got us into this, and democracy's going to get us out." And he's absolutely right.<br />
<br />
S: Right. And it's a never-ending struggle, it appears.<br />
<br />
ES: Democracy is much preferred over lawsuits, believe me.<br />
<br />
R: That's actually what I was about to ask you, because we talked a bit about what we shouldn't do, like confronting creationists and debates and things like that, but what can the average person do who's concerned about things like this? What can we do to stop it?<br />
<br />
ES: Well, certainly inform yourself of the issues, and you can do that from our website, and there's other resources that we provide. Secondly, pay attention. Who's running for your local school board? Who's running for the state's Board of Education in your state? Are they people who have the best interest of science education in mind. You'd be surprised how few people bother to vote for those positions far down the ballot, which means it's extremely easy to take over a school board if you are somebody with an extreme position. So keep the extremists out. That is the best way to solve problems. Don't let them begin. If you do have a problem in your state or in your area, we also have information on our website for how to address the issues. Certainly op-ed pieces in the local paper, responding to letters to the editor that come in and make traditional creationist statements, and, again, they don't come up with anything new. The arguments have been around forever, and there's some pretty good responses to them. Go to [talkorigins.org talkorigins.org], which is an excellent site for refutations of creationist information, and, of course, our site as well.<br />
<br />
S: Well, Genie, we are out of time. We appreciate you joining us on the Skeptics' Guide. It was a wonderful time talking to you. Thanks for joining us.<br />
<br />
ES: Well, I enjoyed it. It's nice to sit around the phone and chat with friends.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Genie.<br />
<br />
S: Keep up the good work at the National Center.<br />
<br />
ES: Thank you very much.<br />
<br />
S: We appreciate what you are doing.<br />
<br />
B: Thank you.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks.<br />
<br />
S: Take care.<br />
<br />
P: Good night, Genie.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that was wonderful having Eugenie Scott on the show. She is the goods. She really knows her stuff.<br />
<br />
R: She is super cool. I really like her.<br />
<br />
P: She gets it.<br />
<br />
S: Yup, incredible resource.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Well I think we have just enough time for a quick Science or Fiction. We do have a creationism-themed Name That Logical Fallacy, but I think we're going to save that 'till next week, because I think we only have time enough for a Science or Fiction, so lets go to that now.<br />
<br />
(''musical intro'')<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:03:17)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: So every week, I come up with three science news items or facts. Two are genuine; one is fictitious. I essentially make it up out of whole cloth. I then challenge my panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake from the real ones. Which one is fiction? And, of course, you at home can play along. The theme for this week is animal speech. You guys ready?<br />
<br />
R: Yup.<br />
<br />
J: Yup.<br />
<br />
B: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: All right, here we go. Again, three items: two science, one fiction. Item number one:<br />
<br />
J: Stupid.<br />
<br />
S: All right, Clever Hans. Item number one.<br />
<br />
R: That's a horse.<br />
<br />
S: Bottlenose dolphins appear to have names and identify themselves to other dolphins by this signature sound. Item number two: studies with European starlings &mdash; those are birds, Perry, by the way ...<br />
<br />
P: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: ... indicate that they understand a basic rule of grammar previously thought to be unique to humans. And item number three: primatologists studying the protolanguage of the rhesus macaque have discovered their vocabulary contains basic mathematical concepts such as numbers and operations like addition.<br />
<br />
P: Is the rhesus macaque a bird or a monkey?<br />
<br />
S: That's a monkey.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So either we have: dolphins with names, birds that understand grammar, or counting monkeys.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, I forget. Are we supposed to pick the one that's right or wrong.<br />
<br />
S: The one that's fake. You tell me which one is fake.<br />
<br />
R: Okay. Okay.<br />
<br />
J: How many show have you done, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
S: I did change the rules last week. <br />
<br />
R: Yeah, he mixes is up sometimes, just to confuse me.<br />
<br />
S: To keep you on your toes. Apparently it's working. All right, Twinkletoes, you go first, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
R: Um, okay. I'm totally going to get this one right. I'm fairly certain I know this. Dolphins was one. Dolphins are very smart, smarter than me, so I'm thinking that that one's true, that they have names. I mean Flipper. Flipper had a name.<br />
<br />
S: Flipper was very smart, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: And his name was "Flipper". It was in the song. So, and then, the starlings thing. Yeah, that's true. So I'm going with the macaque.<br />
<br />
S: All righty. Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Well, I remember reading somewhere about the dolphins, so I'm pretty sure, yes, that dolphins have names, so to say, you know what I mean?<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm. So to speak. <br />
<br />
J: So to speak. Okay, I really think that number two is the fake one. I don't think that birds &mdash; I know that Amazon Grays are very, very advanced with language. I just don't think that the way that you described is the real one, for the birds, for the starlings.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, the European starlings. Yeah, grammar is the new bit in that piece, yeah. So you think that one is fake?<br />
<br />
J: That's what I said, yes.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Perry? <br />
<br />
P: Yeah, I mean dolphins and monkeys, basically, could play chess together. Those are brilliant animals. Birds, you know, the pupil of my eye is bigger than their brainpan for most of them, so.<br />
<br />
J: But Perry, African Grays, though, they can link together colors with a command and shapes.<br />
<br />
P: I'm sorry, who's talking? <br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
P: I thought I was talking.<br />
<br />
J: Perry, this is your mother speaking.<br />
<br />
P: Excuse me? Yeah, birds. They're right out.<br />
<br />
S: You think the birds is fake, too? <br />
<br />
P: They're right out.<br />
<br />
J: The boids. The actual boids.<br />
<br />
S: Bob?<br />
<br />
B: All right, the starling grammar one, I did read about that, and you don't seem to have distorted it too much, so that's probably true. One is totally feasible, although it seems kind of weird. I don't see why not. They're so intelligent, why wouldn't they have designations for each other. So I'm going to say three: the macaques and the mathematical concepts doesn't seem quite right.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, so we've got: two of you think that the counting macaques is fake, and two of you think that the birds who understand grammar is fake. Everyone believes that the dolphins have names. So let's go to that one first. That is true. Recent studies of the communications between bottlenose dolphins indicates that they often contain a unique signature sound, which they interpret &mdash; unique to the individual dolphin. It seems to be a way of them identifying themselves by name to other dolphins.<br />
<br />
J: And I guess they come up with it then, huh?<br />
<br />
S: Apparently. Number two: studies of European starlings indicate that they understand a basic rule of grammar previously thought to be unique to humans. That is completely true. That is science as well.<br />
<br />
R: Ah, ha. See, if you guys had actually read my website you would know that it is true, because I blogged about it last week.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, did you? I didn't see that on your blog, or I wouldn't have used that. <br />
<br />
J: Don't believe that trash.<br />
<br />
R: Ahhh. I should have made you bet more bacon that you were right.<br />
<br />
J: You know, I'm getting hungry for this bacon. I'm ready for it.<br />
<br />
S: Birds, Perry, are actually quite bright. Some of them are problem solving. They can work out puzzles.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, will you stop already with the birds. <br />
<br />
S: And they have quite sophisticated language. And now European starlings were shown to have a ''recursive grammar''.<br />
<br />
P: Okay, there's that one chicken in Manhattan that can play tic-tac-toe.<br />
<br />
R: Well, you know, Steve, to be ...<br />
<br />
J: You are a sick man.<br />
<br />
R: To be fair, though, it's not conclusively proven. There is a chance. It is still up in the air.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: The usual suspects are still contesting that it's not necessarily that way.<br />
<br />
J: It's not the old horse bit where they're like "Okay, count to five", and then the guy basically says once the horse gets to five, the guy ...<br />
<br />
S: Clever Hans, right.<br />
<br />
R: But, that's just it, though, it could be that sort of thing. It's a tough thing.<br />
<br />
S: There's always some legitimate skepticism when you're talking about animal language, because ...<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... you can't know what's going on inside the animal's head. But the evidence is reasonable. I did say "studies indicate," not "it's been coinclusively proven." There's always some doubt.<br />
<br />
P: I remain appropriately skeptical.<br />
<br />
J: If you train, for example, an African Gray, because they're really, I think, the most intelligent.<br />
<br />
S: That's a type of macaw, right?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, it's a bird.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
B: And they're grey.<br />
<br />
J: The thing I found interesting about this topic that you brought up &mdash; the thing is, they really did have an African Gray be able to identify shapes, colors, and commands to the point where they were telling, you know, "go get the yellow triangle," and it would be able to do that.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm. Yeah. There's a lot of research in that area. You have to be very, very careful, and a lot of the gorilla and chimpanzee research, where they essentially were convinced that they were able to create sign language sentences.<br />
<br />
B: Koko!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it probably is very suspect, you know. There's a lot of biased interpretation going on, so you have to be very, very careful.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: But there's no question ...<br />
<br />
J: This is where we need the pet psychic.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, the pet psychic. Absolutely. Now the third one: I had these two items which were animal language, so I had to make up an animal language one for the third one. There's a lot of research being done with the rhesus macaque, because their brains are pretty similar to human brains as far as monkeys go. They're also very easy to breed in captivity, etc., so a lot of research focuses around them. It took me a long time to come up with something that they haven't been demonstrated to do. Think about how big their vocabulary is, in terms of identifying concepts and abstractions. Every time I said, all right, this is going to be my thing, and I looked it up to see if it's been demonstrated if they could do it or not, and there was research that you could reasonably interpret that they could do it. I had to go to math, which I thought was a little out there, but counting and addition and stuff, I couldn't find anything about that, so that I made up. But it actually took me awhile to make up something that actually wasn't true.<br />
<br />
R: Steve, actually I just did a search, and I found this article ''Monkey Math Machinery Is Like Humans''.<br />
<br />
P: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: But they don't have language for numbers and addition.<br />
<br />
R: Ah, okay.<br />
<br />
S: I know they can understand the concepts of amounts. With chimpanzee, for example, I think a lot of the research actually has been with them. So they can understand mathematical concerts in the abstract, but they don't have a language for it.<br />
<br />
P: Also, any monkey could whip any bird's ass.<br />
<br />
J: That's not true.<br />
<br />
P: What do you mean that's not true.<br />
<br />
J: You think a little spider monkey could kick an ostrich's ass?<br />
<br />
P: He could trip him on his long, spindly neck. Absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, wait. Is the monkey allowed to hold a shank of some sort?<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
J: A shank. Okay, I'm sure the monkey has a shank.<br />
<br />
P: He'll jump right up on his neck and give him a nostril flip. That would do. Thank you.<br />
<br />
R: I'm just saying. That's one of the monkeys main strenghts is the ability to operate a sharp object.<br />
<br />
P: The whole opposable thumbs situation, yeah.<br />
<br />
J: There is something scary about a monkey with a knife, I'll give you that.<br />
<br />
R: There sure is. Furious George.<br />
<br />
S: Furious George.<br />
<br />
J: Furious George!<br />
<br />
R: That's a Simpson's joke. I can't take credit for that.<br />
<br />
P: Ostriches are such chumps.<br />
<br />
S: Perry, you're just an avian bigot. Face it.<br />
<br />
P: Come on! Ostriches are chumps. Along with their ...<br />
<br />
R: You're a birdist.<br />
<br />
S: Birdist.<br />
<br />
J: Birdist.<br />
<br />
P: ... avian cousins.<br />
<br />
S: You have to stop ostracizing the ostriches.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, that was bad.<br />
<br />
S: That was bad.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, God!<br />
<br />
B: Perry, did you know an ostrich could kill a man with one kick.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, please. Did you ever see Alfred Hitchcock's ''The Birds'' I mean, come on! It's really terrifying. "Watch out, we've got to tiptoe amongst the seagulls." Get away from me. Give those birds a dropkick.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: All right. We've descended far enough, and we are mercifully out of time.<br />
<br />
R: And we're done.<br />
<br />
S: So Bob and Rebecca get credit this week for picking out ...<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ... the fiction from the science. It's a good job.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you.<br />
<br />
J: So smart.<br />
<br />
R: We are.<br />
<br />
S: So guys, thanks again for joining me. It was a fun show.<br />
<br />
J: You're welcome.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: It was a good one-year anniversary show.<br />
<br />
B: Good show!<br />
<br />
R: Very good show.<br />
<br />
S: Evan could not be with us tonight, so we missed you, Evan. But he'll be back next week.<br />
<br />
P: I'll be out next week; Evan will be back next week.<br />
<br />
S: Yup, Perry will be in Alaska, right?<br />
<br />
P: That's right. I'll be cruising around, keeping my eyes open for aromatherapy salespeople and anything else going on on the boat.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah!<br />
<br />
J: Perry, wait. I'm issuing you a Rebecca-level challenge right now.<br />
<br />
P: What is it?<br />
<br />
J: You have to come back with a very good story about how you found a skeptical issue while on your vacation, and how you debunked it.<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: Unlike Bob, you have to actually confront it directly.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, you have to do something about it.<br />
<br />
R: Somehow, I don't think that will be a problem with Perry.<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's our show. Thanks again for joining me, guys. Until next week this, is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. <br />
<br />
(''The Steve Song'')<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
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|episodeDate = May 10<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Eugenie_Scott.jpg<br />
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|guest1 = ES: {{w|Eugenie Scott}}<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast05-10-06.mp3<br />
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<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, May 10th 2006, and this is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are Bob Novella...<br />
<br />
B: Hello.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson...<br />
<br />
R: Hello.<br />
<br />
S: Perry DeAngelis...<br />
<br />
P: Right on.<br />
<br />
S: And Jay Novella.<br />
<br />
J: Good evening, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Welcome, all.<br />
<br />
R: Hi.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks for joining me again. So today a podcast of distinction in that this is our one-year anniversary, more or less.<br />
<br />
''(all cheering)''<br />
<br />
B: We made it.<br />
<br />
S: We crossed the one-year mark. Our 42nd podcast and we've been doing this now for just over one year.<br />
<br />
B: And, also we've been renewed for a second season.<br />
<br />
S: That's right; we've been renewed for a second season.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
S: So, more episodes to come.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, aren't there 52 weeks in a year, though? What's the&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we... when we initially started, we had some kinks to work out and get our schedules in tune and everything. So the first few months, we were a little intermittent, but I think for the last six or seven months we've been pretty much every week without missing any weeks. So hopefully next week&mdash;next year, we'll put out 52 episodes; we'll try not to miss&mdash;<br />
<br />
P: We're also flying up on the iTunes download rating system.<br />
<br />
S: That's right; we're up to, I think, 24 at last&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: 24.<br />
<br />
S: 24.<br />
<br />
R: I just checked.<br />
<br />
J: Under the science category.<br />
<br />
S: Under the science category. That's right.<br />
<br />
P: Well, of course.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, but you know, the only category that matters.<br />
<br />
P: The meteoric rise has directly mirrored Rebecca's involvement in the show.<br />
<br />
R: ''(laughs)'' Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: Great addition.<br />
<br />
R: Glad you noticed that.<br />
<br />
S: So, thanks&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Is that a logical fallacy?<br />
<br />
S: It's a&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: No.<br />
<br />
B: What was that, Steve?<br />
<br />
R: Correlation-causation&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
S: Confusing correlation with causation? I think so, yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ''(laughs)'' One and the same.<br />
<br />
S: But thanks to all our listeners out there. You guys have made this quite an experience. Thanks for listening.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== UFO's in the UK <small>(2:11)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Scientology Superheroes <small>(5:26)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails ==<br />
=== Tracking Satellites <small>(11:52)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Drinking Water <small>(14:11)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Interview with Eugenie Scott <small>(19:36)</small>==<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:03:17)</small>==<br />
Item #1: Bottlenose dolphins appear to have names and identify themselves to other dolphins by this signature sound.<br />
Item #2: Studies with European starlings indicate that they understand a basic rule of grammar previously thought to be unique to humans.<br />
Item #3: Primatologists studying the proto-language of the rhesus macaque have discovered their vocabulary basic mathematical concepts such as numbers and operations.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9902Template:SGU episode list2015-05-11T23:05:09Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 41 as finished; 42 in progress.</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
<br />
Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
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{|<br />
!Key:<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 513]], May 9 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 512]], May 2 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_41&diff=9901SGU Episode 412015-05-11T23:03:10Z<p>Jim Gibson: Finish transcription.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
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|formatting = y<br />
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|Today I Learned list = y<br />
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|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 41<br />
|episodeDate = May 3<sup>rd</sup> 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Bosnia-pyramid.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast05-03-06.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, May 3, 2006. This is your host Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Hello.<br />
<br />
S: ... Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hey.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Perry DeAngelis.<br />
<br />
P: Righto!<br />
<br />
S: So happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone, or almost Cinco de Mayo. <br />
<br />
B: Tres de Mayo.<br />
<br />
S: By the time this is published.<br />
<br />
R: It's a tough date to keep (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
S: I know. When's the Fourth of July, again? I always forget.<br />
<br />
B: Ha, ha.<br />
<br />
=== Toxic Cruise <small>(00:50)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: But speaking of Mexico, Bob &mdash; we'll do a quick segue &mdash; you were recently on a Mexican cruise.<br />
<br />
B: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: And you had a run-in with pseudoscience on the cruise ship. Is that right?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, it was a little discouraging. Overall, though, I must say the cruise was fantastic. Everything was awesome, from the food, the service, the amenities. The ports we stopped at in Mexico were all great, and especially ...<br />
<br />
R: Did you see any of those wrestlers with the masks?<br />
<br />
B: No, I did not. I was looking for them. Didn't see anybody.<br />
<br />
S: Like Nacho Libre?<br />
<br />
R: I love those guys.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, I can't wait for that movie. One of the high points, of course, was the casino on board, in which I won $1000 playing blackjack.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we talked about that last week, because Evan went gambling last week, too.<br />
<br />
B: How much?<br />
<br />
S: $1300 I think.<br />
<br />
B: Oooh. Nice.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, like a slot machine.<br />
<br />
B: So, my biggest problem, as Steve said, wasn't the seasickness, and it wasn't not getting to the top of that damn rock wall that they had on board, but it was the pseudoscience. I couldn't believe it. I went into the gym, and they had a fat-burning seminar, and so I was waiting for that. I looked at some of the brochures they had and listened to this woman, this trainer, who was talking about how to lose fat, and I just couldn't believe what she was saying. Well, I was hoping she'd say, I guess, the obvious stuff. You want to lose fat, you've got to get more active. You've got to eat less, and just all the obvious stuff that actually takes some effort and not that much money, but she was really going off on the whole idea that in order to really burn fat, you've got to "remove the toxins from your body," and she said some ...<br />
<br />
R: The toxins being Twinkies.<br />
<br />
B: Right, right. So she said things, and, Steve, maybe you could address some of these things, some things that I never heard before. She was saying that your liver cannot properly metabolize fat, because the fat cells have around them water. Well, that's not very surprising, but also not only water, but acid. I assume she meant lactic acid, but because of that, the liver has limited access to your fat cells, and these toxins have to be removed before it can be metabolized.<br />
<br />
S: That's just pure nonsense.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: The liver is the biochemical factory of the body. It does &mdash; there's a portal venous system which, basically, drains nutrients and things absorbed to the gut directly to the liver, so it gets passed through the liver before it goes to the rest of the body, and that's where the fat and cholesterol and everything, a lot of that does get metabolized. Fat-soluble whatever, chemicals or toxins, absolutely can get metabolized by the liver. That's just mumbo-jumbo what she was saying.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah<br />
<br />
P: Bob, did you jump forward and start shaking the woman?<br />
<br />
B: You know, I definitely had a skeptical attitude and asked questions and stuff, but I didn't really go to town on her, because &mdash; and I knew it was all junk, but I really didn't have facts, really hard facts to say "Hey, what about ABC and D all this stuff." So basically ...<br />
<br />
R: Well, she didn't have hard facts either, so.<br />
<br />
B: Well, no, she didn't either, but I didn't want to refute her ...<br />
<br />
P: That didn't seem to stop her.<br />
<br />
B: ... unless I really had some good stuff to back me up. I just have kind of like ...<br />
<br />
S: You knew it didn't sound right, but you didn't have the facts at your fingertips to counter her point by point.<br />
<br />
B: Right. So I took good mental notes, because I knew I was going to discuss it and research it after the cruise and stuff. But there's other things. It didn't end there. I grabbed all their brochures that I could find, and everything, and they were offering some stuff that was really, that was really out there. I've got a list of a couple things that they were offering. They had something called &mdash; they had a special massage that included shiatsu, reflexology, and aromatherapy in a package. They refer to these as "cultural touches." Now I'm not sure what they were getting at by calling them cultural touches, but it's obvious baloney.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
B: They also had chakra stone therapy, and let me give you ...<br />
<br />
S: Chakras are just a life force bit.<br />
<br />
B: Right. Let me just read you what it says here in the ....<br />
<br />
P: Uh, Deepak Chakra.<br />
<br />
S: Deepak Chakra.<br />
<br />
B: Hah! It says "In Bali it's believed that stones are filled with the vitality and energy of the water that flows over them in an eternal stream. Harnessing these properties, we bathe the stones in warm water, anoint them with spicy aroma of the Orient, and blah blah blah, and then using aromatherapy techniques to release muscular tension." You get all that: 50 minutes, $120.<br />
<br />
S: Nice. It's a nice round number.<br />
<br />
B: Now here &mdash; have you guys ever heard of this? This is called, let's see "Iona Theramy". Iona theramy is a figure-corrective and firming therapy from France. It's a "unique detox treatment which works with stimuli and algae to reduce cellulite and fatty deposits from the stomach, thighs, and buttocks in women and the stomach region in men. You will lose ...", get this, "... 3 to 8 inches of external toxins in one session."<br />
<br />
S: Do you know what removes cellulite really well?<br />
<br />
B: A sharp blade?<br />
<br />
R: Cheese grater?<br />
<br />
S: Nothing! Nothing removes cellulite. Anything that claims it removes cellulite is bogus.<br />
<br />
B: I mean, just lose weight, lose fat, and your cellulite will be less noticeable. That's really the only thing you could do.<br />
<br />
S: You could lose 3 to 8 inches of toxins, uh? That's a lot of toxins.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: What does that mean? 3 to 8 ''inches'' of toxins.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, does that mean that they measure your waist, your legs, and your arms, and your neck, and if they all go down an inch, therefore you've lost 8 inches. Is it one location, or is it multiple locations?<br />
<br />
S: Oh, probably they add it up to make it sound more impressive.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah. So, um ...<br />
<br />
S: The alternative medicine gurus and quacks have a few shticks. They really only have two or three themes, and everything is pretty much a permutation of those themes. One theme is just the life energy, the life force, and doing something to improve the flow or balance of it. Another one is nutrition. That's always a big one. Nutritional deficiencies cause everything, and you can cure anything with good nutrition. And another one is toxins. Your body's not working because it's being assaulted from the outside by toxins, and you could make anything better by getting rid of the toxins. That's all. This is not surprising at all, because the spa industry, which for hundreds of years has been on the cutting edge of pseudoscience, caters to wealthy people with lots of disposable incomes, who are enamored of these touchy-feely, feel-good kind of treatments, who are motivated to believe all these pie-in-the-sky claims. So it's a marriage made in heaven.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah. But one other thing. I went to the &mdash; the catalogue the woman gave me was for products called &mdash; it's E L E M I S &mdash; "elemis," and they've got all sorts of stuff and creams and lotions and all sorts of things to help detoxify yourself. So, it's a little bit unique in that they're not saying "fast for a week," "just eat strawberries for seven days." They actually have these creams and things to help detoxify yourself. So the products are a little unique in that regard. But also, in the fine print on the website, it says "in addition, try to drink at least eight glasses of water a day to flush your system (blah, blah, blah), exercise a few times a week, concentrating on affected areas, eat a healthy balanced diet, including fruits and vegetables." Now to me &mdash; we've all seen these things before, but to me, that's like telling somebody with a tumor on their kidney: "take my special antitumor pills, bathe in my alien rock bath, and in addition to this, have surgery to remove the tumor."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: You know, it's like, okay ...<br />
<br />
S: One of those will work, you know.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And then they usually roll it together with some basic, common-sense advice: stay well-hydrated, eat a good meal, and get some activity, and that makes it seem like they're holistic ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... and they know what they're talking about.<br />
<br />
B: So spend hundreds of dollars on these worthless things, but also do these commonsense things that we know work.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: Well, I'm taking a cruise to Alaska in 10 days.<br />
<br />
B: Are you?<br />
<br />
P: I will keep my eyes open for such cultural anomalies.<br />
<br />
B: You will see it. You will absolutely see it.<br />
<br />
P: I'm sure. I'm sure I will.<br />
<br />
R: Tell us all about the cultural touch.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
P: Indeed.<br />
<br />
S: Maybe they'll have some ancient Eskimo healing modalities available for you.<br />
<br />
P: It's possible.<br />
<br />
S: From the Inuit, we should say.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Bosnian Pyramids <small>(9:24)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well, let's talk about some Bosnian pyramids. I'm sure you guys have heard about this. So a self-styled archaeologist by the name of {{w|Semir Osmanagić|Sammy Osmanagich}} claims that he has discovered a ziggurat-style or step-style pyramid in Bosnia, and this pyramid's, in fact, larger than the largest pyramid at {{w|Giza}} in Egypt. He first noticed it from photographs of this area, this town in Bosnia, and there is a mountain {{w|Visočica hill|Visocica}} ...<br />
<br />
R: I'd call it a hill.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, a hill. It's more of a hill. That is shaped kind of pyramid-like, and ...<br />
<br />
R: As hills are known to be.<br />
<br />
S: As hills are, sometimes. So he's now claiming that he's found proof or least evidence from excavating on the hill that it is, in fact, a man-made structure, a pyramid. Now what's interesting about this claim is that the press has largely perpetrated this story, or perpetuated the story, reported it without even a bit of skepticism, without a bit of background investigation, without doing any investigative journalism whatsoever. Or even, ...<br />
<br />
P: I'm shocked! I'm shocked!<br />
<br />
S: ... even fact checking, or even like chatting with an expert: "say hey, is this on the level?" They just report it. This is true. I've found credulous reports. A lot of them are the same. A lot of them are just reprints of AP, but credulous reports on Fox News, the New York Times, MSNBC, ...<br />
<br />
R: CNN.<br />
<br />
S: ... CNN, the BBC News, which is usually a little bit better. They're all just saying just flat out as if this is a straightforward archaeological story. Now, at first, you might think "all right, so there's a pyramid in Bosnia. Big deal." You know, it's doesn't sound like that fantastic of a claim. There are pyramids in other places of the world. Although, this would be, if true, the first pyramid discovered in Europe. So it would be significant for that.<br />
<br />
R: And, Steve, who does he think built this pyramid?<br />
<br />
S: Well, there you go. If you do even a little bit of background, ask those obvious questions: "Who is this guy? What's he claiming?", then you uncover a can of worms. So this guy, Osmanagich, believes that the pyramid was built 12,000 years ago. Do you guys recognize the significance of the 12,000 year figure?<br />
<br />
R: The significance that that area was under ice at the time?<br />
<br />
S: That's the scientific significance of it.<br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
S: The significance is that 12,000 years is the alleged date of Atlantis. That Atlantis sunk.<br />
<br />
B: Ooooohhhhh.<br />
<br />
R: There you go, right.<br />
<br />
S: Plato writing 3000 years ago said that it was 9000 years prior to his writing, so that would make it 12,000 years ago. He thinks the Atlantans built the pyramid, and that the Atlantans are, in fact, aliens who came here from the Pleiades between 12 and 27,000 years ago. They were responsible for multiple ancient cultures, all of the ancient pyramids, Mayan culture.<br />
<br />
P: It's a little ''Chariot of the Gods'' (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, a little chariot-of-the-god-ish.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: What's unique about this is that he combining these huge worlds of crap and bringing them together to form one huge ball of crap.<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't say that is unique. There are other people who do that.<br />
<br />
R: It's pretty ballsy, though. To not only say that the Atlanteans built the pyramids, he's not content to just ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: ... stop there. No. Do you know where the aliens came from? That's right, the Pleidades.<br />
<br />
S: The Pleiades. A lot of people lock in on the Pleiades. Billy Meyer claims that his aliens are from the Pleiades as well, and I've heard ...<br />
<br />
R: What's up with the Pleiades?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, what's up with the Pleiades? In fact, the Pleiades are probably the last place aliens would come from, because that is a birthplace of very new and young stars. It wouldn't have been enough time for any life to evolve in the Pleiades.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the Pleiades, it's a group, I believe, of 7 visible stars that are gravitationally related. They're also called the ''Seven Sisters'', I believe.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
B: And it's just a famous grouping of stars. You know, sounds nice.<br />
<br />
S: You know why they pick on the Pleiades? Because the name is cool sounding.<br />
<br />
B: Right, exactly.<br />
<br />
R: It is a nice name.<br />
<br />
B: That's it. That's the only reason.<br />
<br />
R: And they're visible, too.<br />
<br />
S: They're naked-eye visible. So, anyway, if you read this guy's website, he has this elaborate mythology and fantasy about who built this pyramid and about worshiping of the Sun and how we're destined to become in-harmony with the Sun's vibrations. He really goes off into La-La Land, and you would think that any reporter who just like did a Google search on this guy's name in five minutes would see that he's a complete fruitcake. But apparently no journalist did this. Now the only report that I read that was skeptical of this was from ''Archaeology'' magazine. Now, of course, they were appropriately offended at this whole affair. They're planning a detailed exposé in their upcoming issue, but they did write sort of a quick debunking of it that you can ...<br />
<br />
P: Problem is that nobody reads ''Archaeology'' magazine, and ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
P: ... everybody reads the New York Times.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know if you go to Google and you search for Bosnian pyramids, you're still going to come up with not only this crazy guy's website, but also you'll come up with the original news stories from the BBC and ABC News with no correction.<br />
<br />
S: There's even bosnianpyramid.com. The guy has his own website.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: You're right, and buried in there somewhere might be the Archaeology article saying "Oh, yeah, by the way, this is all bogus." And maybe, hopefully, eventually, there'll also be a little link in there to this podcast, where we discuss how bogus it is.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: But very, very, very little skepticism about this, and I think eventually the news cycle will catch up with this. It will be behind the times by weeks or months, but eventually the news cycle will catch up with "But, by the way, this is all bogus." But by then it will be in the popular consciousness. It will be a permanent fixture ...<br />
<br />
P: Too late. It will be too late.<br />
<br />
S: ... in the halls of pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
P: You can get anything in print if you've got the guts to claim it.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. The other little wrinkle to this, other than the absolute falling down of the press, is that this hill actually has a lot of legitimate archaeological sites on it. There was a Roman occupation there, a Paleolithic occupation. In fact, as Rebecca mentioned, at the time he alleges this pyramid was built, there was maybe 100 hunter gatherers with stone tools living in the area. No way did they have the resources to build a pyramid. And this guy's basically tromping over this legitimate archaeological site. So a lot of people are trying to get him to stop before he destroys all the ... yeah, he wants basically remove all the dirt from this hill. He thinks there's going to be a pyramid underneath. But the city of Sarajevo, which is nearby, and the federal government in Bosnia are supporting him, because they want this to attract tourism. They don't care if it's true or not, they just know it's bringing in the tourist dollars. So that fight's going on right now. Now his recent findings that are what made this hit the news cycle: he found some rocks or something that look like they're man-made, and he claims this is part of the outer wall of the pyramid. He's probably just digging up some legitimate archaeological sites, whatever, from Roman structures or whatever. Again, there are known stuff up there. Either he's completely misinterpreting natural formation, or he's just discovering older, legitimate ruins, just not 12,000 year-old pyramid. So, incredible.<br />
<br />
R: I think I need to come up with a crap plan like that and see if I can get on the BBC.<br />
<br />
S: You're a lot more famous doing that than skepticism, I'll tell you that.<br />
<br />
P: That's for sure.<br />
<br />
R: I think maybe I'll try it. I'll come with the exact opposite of SkepChicks. It'll be lik PsiChicks, maybe. <br />
<br />
S: We'll do an experiment.<br />
<br />
R: We'll see how far that goes.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, if you did PsiChicks, forget it. That would be a hit. That would be a hit.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, that would be big.<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails ==<br />
=== Bubble Universes <small>(17:24)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well, we... let's move on; we have a lot of e-mail, and some excellent questions we've been getting in e-mail, so I want to try to cover a few of those this week. The first question comes from Elias Luna in Bronx, New York, from nearby. He writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I have a couple of questions which I would love to hear you guys discuss. What's your view on {{w|Michio Kaku}}'s ''[pronounced kuh-ku]'' view of the universe as a {{w|Multiverse|multiverse}}, that we are nothing but a bubble in a sea of bubbles.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
B: I believe it's pronounced "Michio Kaku".<br />
<br />
S: Is it kah-ku?<br />
<br />
B: I believe.<br />
<br />
S:<blockquote>If there is a so-called multiverse, when did it begin? I'm not speaking of our universe, because we all know the universe began with the Big Bang. But let's say there is a multiverse. What is beyond the multiverse and beyond what's beyond the multiverse and etc.? You see, it's a paradox and the only way to escape is to say there's always been something somewhere, literally for infinite and will be, so there is no end or beginning in the grand scheme of things. And if there is an infinite amount of universes or multiverses there, there's an infinite amount of civilizations.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Then he goes on along &mdash; basically, that's his question. He asks a couple of other questions. So let's talk about that first. Bob, do you want to start?<br />
<br />
B: Well, yeah, his main question in the beginning is: if there is a multiverse, when did it begin? And you really can't ask that question, because, by definition, you have no contact to any of these other bubble universes within the multiverse or meta-verse. So how could you determine how old it is. I mean, our universe could have been created 15 billion years ago, but it might be a baby compared to other universes. Or we could be the first universe in a bubble universe. So you really can't know how old this multiverse might be. You just can't get outside of your universe, by definition.<br />
<br />
S: Right. And just to clarify, that's because, ''by definition'', our universe is everything that we can interact with. Anything that can affect us, everything that we can affect, everything that we can see is, by definition, part of our universe. So, from a theoretical point of view, another universe that was part of a grander multiverse would be forever inaccessible to us.<br />
<br />
B: Right. And imagine if somehow you could contact another bubble universe within the multiverse, even that wouldn't help you, because who knows how old that universe is and how long that bubble has been around. You'd have to literally examine every one and find out what the oldest is and say, "OK, this is how old the multiverse is", so it's really inconceivable.<br />
<br />
S: The other possibility is that &mdash; and {{w|Stephen Hawking|Stephen Hawkings}} ''[sic]'' wrote about this &mdash; that the age of the universe or the multiverse may be finite but unbound. This is kind of a hard concept to get across, but it's kind of like the surface of a sphere. It's finite. The amount of space that it occupies is finite, but there's no beginning or end that you can point to. It's continuous. There's no specific boundary, but it is finite. So the time dimension of our universe may be the same thing. Maybe we didn't have a beginning and we won't have an end, even though the amount of time that it occupies could still be finite.<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean that we're going to get around to the beginning again at some point?<br />
<br />
S: I don't know. I don't know. When you start to talk about cosmology like that, whenever physicists write about that kind of cosmology, they always say something to the effect "you could really only express these ideas in, like, 12-dimensional derivative calculus, but I'm going to try to sort of paraphrase in English".<br />
<br />
B: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
S: So I mean, these are concepts that you can't really even understand, except on a very sophisticated mathematical level. So who knows what it all really means. This is also, by the way, Kaku is the guy &mdash; he was one of the co-originators of {{w|String theory|string theory}}, right? That's what it says on his [http://mkaku.org website], anyway.<br />
<br />
B: OK. I'm not sure if he was one of the originators.<br />
<br />
P: So what is the point of positing the hypothesis?<br />
<br />
S: That's exactly what I was going to get to next, Perry. This all very interesting, but unless you can derive from these notions a testable hypothesis, some way to test it, then it doesn't really enter the realm of empirical science. At best it's a mathematical construct, and it's just a mathematical theorem. Now, mathematical theorems can be the beginning of a scientific exploration or a scientific investigation. It could say, "well, here's a model that's internally consistent and is consistent with what we observe". But you still have to then test it against something. You have to find some way to find out if it's actually real or not. And no one's been able to figure out a way to test string theory or the multi-universe theory or any of these other sort of big ultimate cosmological questions. So, at the moment, they still lie in the realm of theoretical mathematics and not empirical science.<br />
<br />
=== Limits of Black Holes <small>(22:16)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So let's go on to the second e-mail. This one's a lot shorter. This one is from Dan Hanch in California, and he writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Is there a limit to the amount of mass that a black hole can consume? Why don't the super-massive black holes in the center of galaxies gobble up all the surrounding highly dense stars, gases, etc.?<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
B: Let me grab that one again, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, go ahead, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: If that's all right. I know of no limit, and I can't think of why there would be a limit. As you just keep feeding a black hole matter, there's no reason why it's just not going to just keep sucking it up. Now I've heard &mdash; I've read estimates of super-massive black holes that have millions of Solar masses, and of course, a Solar mass is the matter equivalent in our sun. That's generally how they rate them, by Solar masses. I've seen them listed as millions of Solar masses and even billions, but recently, they found a super-massive black hole that is generating energy at the rate of 20 trillion suns. I've never heard an amount that huge. They never went into the trillions; I've only seen billions. But 20 trillions is truly staggering.<br />
<br />
P: That's a lot of suns.<br />
<br />
S: Was that part of the recent discovery, Bob, that some black holes generate more energy than they consume?<br />
<br />
B: No, that's unrelated to {{w|Hawking radiation}}.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Are you talking about free energy there?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, are you saying we could have black-hole-powered cars one day?<br />
<br />
P: Is that what you're talking about?<br />
<br />
B: That would be interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Theoretically. It was a recent discovery that's also been on a lot of the news sites recently. So-called green or energy-efficient black holes. But the implications of that, obviously, are unclear.<br />
<br />
B: So I don't think there's any limit. I mean, a black hole could conceivably hold the entire universe worth of matter. There's no reason why it couldn't do that. So there is no limit. The other question that he had was: why doesn't it just keep on sucking up everything. People seem to think that black holes &mdash; I mean, they do have immense gravitational pull, but they seem to think that their reach is just beyond what anything else with mass has, but that's not true. If our sun turned into a black hole at this moment, I don't see any reason why the Earth wouldn't still continue to orbit around it. It wouldn't necessarily increase its gravitational pull and suck us it. Now, of course, it would have an event horizon and things like that. It'd have all these wacky features of a black hole, but it doesn't mean it's going to reach out any farther than anything else with that much gravitational pull. So, generally a black hole will clean out the area around it, and it'll create and produce lots of energy in the form of X-rays and things, things that &mdash; it's not leaving the black hole, it's just being created and emitted before it crosses the event horizon. So once it sweeps out that area, then the black hole becomes quiescent and pretty much just waits around for more matter to slowly get a little closer and closer and closer.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: So it really is &mdash; it's more like a hole and not like a vacuum. Some people seem to think that it kind of acts like it's sucking, but it's really more of a hole.<br />
<br />
S: No more than any other object with similar gravity, basically.<br />
<br />
B: Right. Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: And the gravity still falls off as the square of the distance, which is ...<br />
<br />
B: Right. Exactly. That's not violated with a black hole.<br />
<br />
S: And also, another way to think about it is that, well, it kind of is sucking in everything that's around it, that's close to it, as you say, but also, things are really far away in the galaxy and outer space, and there's still the speed of light that can't be violated. So, even if things do move towards the gravitational pull of a black hole, it would take a long time to draw in things that are very, very far away.<br />
<br />
B: Right. And beyond a certain distance, you're essentially &mdash; it's just not there to you, gravitationally, because once you go a certain distance away ... <br />
<br />
S: You would orbit around it, but it wouldn't draw you in.<br />
<br />
=== Origin of Life <small>(26:15)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: A closer question &mdash; this one regards the origin of life. This one is from Jeremy Freeman of Springfield, Illinois. Jeremy writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I recently discovered your podcast and just got caught up to your most recent episode. I'm disappointed that now I have to wait for you to release a new one, but you guys put on a great show, very interesting and entertaining.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Thanks.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
In one of your podcasts and in your article, "[http://www.theness.com/index.php/the-starchild-project/ The Starchild Project]"<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
That's an article, by the way, that you could find on the [http://www.theness.com NESS website], on our Articles page.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
You refer to a point that Carl Sagan made and said that it would be incredibly unlikely that human and alien DNA would be compatible because it would be from two completely different evolutionary genetic code sequences. I agree with that line of thinking, but it got me thinking about a related question that maybe you could shed some light on. If I understand correctly, we share a genetic code with every other known form of life on Earth.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
That is correct.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Therefore, we assume that an alien life form would have a genetic code from its planet of origin. What prevented multiple starting points of life on Earth? I mean, why is there only one set of genetic code? Why on a planet as hospitable to life as Earth, wouldn't life have started from multiple points? Why doesn't life spark even now, to create a new random microbe with different code to start a new evolutionary chain? I would like to know if scientists have attempted to answer this in the past and what their conclusions or theories were. Without an answer to that question and no evidence that shows that this has happened and that life died out, the likelihood of life on other planets decreases dramatically, at least in my mind. I'm not ready to go to the creationist route, but without a good answer, it's really bugging me.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
R: We've got one on the cusp here, guys.<br />
<br />
S: We need to draw him in.<br />
<br />
R: We need to pull him back and save him from the creationists.<br />
<br />
S: So let me start with this one. So it is true that all life on Earth shares the same genetic code, and what we mean by that is the DNA sequence &mdash; you know, DNA has four {{w|Base pair|base pairs}}, like four letters to the alphabet, and each sequence of three base pairs codes for a specific either {{w|Amino acid|amino acid}} and then there are a few that regulate the transcription of that. Like, for example, they may tell the transcription process to stop at a certain point. So that's the code. Which three letters equal what amino acid. There is absolutely no reason, by the way, why any two different species on this planet would have the same genetic code, except because of heredity. So, therefore, we can conclude that all life on Earth is related to itself, to each other. Life that evolved on another planet &mdash; first of all, we wouldn't even know that they would have DNA. They may have some completely other molecule serving as their genetic code.<br />
<br />
B: Could be a triple helix.<br />
<br />
S: Whatever. It could be proteins. It could be something other than deoxyribonucleic acid, right? It could be some other chemical compound. And even if it was something like DNA, there's no reason why they would have randomly come up with the same genetic code, the same three letters equaling the same amino acid. They may, in fact, use a different... we use twenty. All life on Earth is derived from twenty amino acids. They may have a different set of amino acids then what we have. They may use some that we don't and not use some that we do. Now, in terms of has life arisen multiple times on this planet and why doesn't it. Well, one reason is that the conditions which were suitable for the origin of life on the early planet are no longer present. For example, there probably was a lot more electrical storms early on. There was no oxygen in the atmosphere. There were probably lots more ammonia and methane and other compounds. So the early Earth, which may have been more suitable for the generation of life, is not the conditions that exist now. Also, once life did arise, it would use up a lot of the resources in the environment. It would basically fill all the niches pretty quickly on the planet. And that would crowd out any new life trying to get a foothold. So whichever life arose first would have probably just crowded out any other later attempts at life arising.<br />
<br />
Also, interestingly, there is one form of life that has a slightly different genetic code than everything else. Do you guys know what that is? I know Bob does.<br />
<br />
R: A fundamentalist?<br />
<br />
B: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
S: That's not a bad guess. It's actually {{w|Mitochondrion|mitochondria}}. Mitochondria, which are organelles inside of our cells &mdash; they're the energy factories of our cells. They were probably a primitive form of bacteria that then formed a symbiotic relationship with larger cells. And they have a slightly different genetic code than does all other life. So, probably mitochondria represent a very early side branch of the branch of life that led to all existing life today. It's possible that they were a completely separate branch of life, but probably not, because they're still too similar. The genetic code's not totally randomized. It's very similar to other life. There's just a few differences. So, but what that also implies is that &mdash; well, you know, there could've been multiple origins of life, multiple early branching points with different genetic codes, but only one branch survived, the one that later gave rise to all of life. So the early sort of chaotic biological systems on this world may have been competing, and one branch survived. And that's why we only have genetic code at this point in time. So, those are some possible answers. Probably the most far out answer, which is still a possibility, is that life on Earth was actually {{w|Panspermia|seeded from outer space}}. If a meteorite landed on Earth that had some templates of DNA or whatever, that could have then seeded this planet with life. And then, of course, if life on this planet arose from one point of seeding, it would all have the same genetic code. That's still very hypothetical, but that's another sort of possibility compatible with that. So, interesting question, and yeah, there's quite a bit of speculation that is compatible with what we see.<br />
<br />
=== Iridology <small>(32:34)</small>===<br />
<br />
We received another e-mail from Kim, who asks:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Please talk more about alternate medicine on your podcasts. I know that's one of your primary interests, and I'm dying to learn more about it since I know so little about it. I have a co-worker who believes very strongly in diagnosing people's ailments by reading the iris of the eye. I believe it is the iris.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
"Iridology", I think he calls it.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Yes, it is called iridology.<br />
<br />
P: That's it.<br />
<br />
S: <br />
<blockquote><br />
Do you know anything about that? I had thyroid cancer and he told me he could see it a mile away in my eyes. I thought he meant I looked sad or something and was stunned when he explained what he meant. Nice of him to tell me after the fact.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
B: Ha-ha!<br />
<br />
S: <br />
<blockquote><br />
Thanks again,<br /><br />
Kim<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, yes, I'm very familiar with iridology. {{w|Iridology}} is a pseudo-science which basically involves making diagnoses by reading the color variations and flecks of color in the iris of the eye. This was cooked up about 150 years ago in the mid-1800s by a Hungarian physician called Ignatz von P&eacute;czely (I think that's how you pronounce it), and he said &mdash; he based it on an anecdote, where when he was a child, he found an owl who had broken his wing, and he noticed a dark fleck in his iris, and when he fixed his wing, the dark fleck went away. And he said "hmmm". So then he started looking at the irises of his patients and thought he could correlate the flecks with what diseases they've had.<br />
<br />
P: Sadly, he was wrong.<br />
<br />
S: Apparently. Now this was popularized in the United States by Bernard Jensen, D.C., Doctor of Chiropractic, who actually passed away in 2001.<br />
<br />
P: Terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
S: He wrote several books about it. He was basically the leading American iridologist. He wrote, for example, "nature has provided us with a miniature television screen showing the most remote portions of the body by way of nerve reflex responses". So what he and other iridologists believe is that the iris is connected to every other part of the body through nerve endings, and whenever any part of the body is diseased, those nerve endings will change the iris, and you can read that by looking at the iris. Of course, these nerve endings have never been discovered. You can dissect the eye, and there is no such structures. They just simply don't exist. And there is absolutely not a single bit of science to support any of the claims of iridologists. I was reading an iridology website, and it's incredible how they just make these bold-face statements, which are completely false. Under "what is iridology", they write, "iridology is the scientific analysis of patterns and structures in the iris of the eye which locates areas and stages of inflammation throughout the body". So that's &mdash; first of all, it's not a scientific analysis, because there's zero empirical evidence that there's any correlation between how the iris looks and any disease or health state.<br />
<br />
Further, despite the fact that this is utter and unmitigated nonsense, it has actually been researched to test the claims. Now, in 1979, Bernard Jensen &mdash; again, this is like the leader of American iridology, so you can't claim this guy didn't know what he was doing in terms of iridology &mdash; and two other proponents failed a scientific test in which they examined the photographs of eyes of 143 persons. Basically, some of them had clear-cut, proven kidney disease. The others were normal controls. And they could not do any better than chance, just to say who had kidney disease and who didn't have kidney disease. Surprise, surprise. And there have been other studies, very similar, where they basically do no better than guessing. In fact, there was one great study where they actually sent some iridologists photographs of, like, monkey eyes and glass eyes, and they couldn't even tell that they weren't actually human eyes. They were, like, diagnosing the glass eyes.<br />
<br />
P: ''(chuckles)'' The main problem with iridology is it's not as funny as {{w|Phrenology|phrenology}}, reading the lumps on your head. So it never made it into the {{w|Bugs Bunny}} cartoons.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)'' That's true.<br />
<br />
P: That's the main problem with it.<br />
<br />
S: So Bugs Bunny was never able to ridicule iridology. Basically, what it comes down to, it's a cold reading. You know, the iridologists look at your iris and they give you a medical cold reading. And they also write that if &mdash; the changes may not show an ''existing'' disease, it just shows that you might have a predisposition to a disease. So of course, if they say ... <br />
<br />
B: Hedge your bets.<br />
<br />
S: ... "Oh, I see kidney disease in your iris", and you don't have any kidney disease, they can say, "oh, well you might get kidney disease in the future".<br />
<br />
R: Or maybe your mother has kidney disease.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So does that sound familiar? That's exactly what the psychics do.<br />
<br />
B: Yup. Absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: "Oh, this isn't true of you? Well, it may be in the future. Just hold on to that. That's something that may come true in the future."<br />
<br />
B: So they could never be wrong.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: But there is something that I learned about irises that are very fascinating. Did you know that your iris is the most unique, you know, "fingerprint", quote-unquote, for you, more so than even your DNA? The pattern that your iris makes is so unique, it's more unique than your DNA. And that's why the ...<br />
<br />
S: Well, technically, Bob, you can't be more unique, because unique means one of a kind. So you're not using that term exactly correctly.<br />
<br />
P: Very good.<br />
<br />
B: Well, I mean, you could be a twin and you're not unique but still your iris would be unique. Right?<br />
<br />
S: Right. I know what you're saying. There are more points of difference between the irises of two people than there are points of difference between their DNA.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So that's what you mean to say. But anyway, so let me read you &mdash; that is true, and iris scans may become a method of identification in the future. And the reason for that is because ...<br />
<br />
B: Well it is now! It is now.<br />
<br />
S: That's true. You're right.<br />
<br />
B: With biometric scanning. If you do one iris, it's unbelievably accurate, but if you do both irises, it's like one in 20 billion or 50 billion or something crazy.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's because &mdash; the reason why there could be more detail in the iris than in your DNA is because our bodies are more complex once they develop than is encoded in the DNA.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: The DNA just has rules for how things develop, but by following those rules, you can actually get more information than is in the DNA itself. This is why our brains contain more information than our DNA does, right?<br />
<br />
B: Exactly. Right. Exactly.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(39:12)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: I do want to &mdash; now, last week we began the Name That Logical Fallacy segment, and I want to continue that this week. And I was reading through our list of logical fallacies. I also had written an article for the {{NESS}} &mdash; again, that's on our website &mdash; about logical fallacies, and I realized that I really need to update it. So I've been doing that for the past week or so, and hopefully fairly soon, I'll publish an updated article on arguments in general, premises, etc. and also a greatly expanded list of logical fallacies. I searched for other peoples' lists of logical fallacies just to see what they contain. Some people have &mdash; the longest list that I found was 43 different logical fallacies. We have our [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logical-fallacies top 20 on the website]. But actually, when you read them, the vast majority of the new ones or the extra ones that are not on our list are really just sub-types or derivations of existing ones. So, it depends on whether or not you want to lump various fallacies into one type or general type or you want to split out even fine differences between them. So, the list could be longer or shorter depending upon that. But anyway, so keep an eye out for my expanded description of logical fallacies. But while I was reading the iridology site, one paragraph struck me. I thought that would be a good one to try to identify a subtle logical fallacy.<br />
<br />
Now on this same site, and, of course again, we'll have the link for you, it describes how iridology works, what it shows, and there's also a paragraph on what iridology will ''not'' show. Let me read this for you guys and tell me if anything strikes you as a logical fallacy. It says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Iridology will not show or name a specific disease, but provides information about the body tissues which indicate tendencies toward conditions of disease, often before symptoms appear. Iridology will not reveal surgery performed under anesthesia, as nerve impulses are discontinued. Iridology cannot locate parasites, gallstones, or germ life but will indicate the presence of inflammation and toxic conditions. It will not show pregnancy, as that is a normal function of the female body.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
So what do you guys think about that? Now I admit you have to have that into a little bit of context of the claims for and against iridology. Well, why do you think they go out of their way to say that having your kidney removed surgically won't cause your iris to change, to reveal, for example, kidney disease?<br />
<br />
R: To cover their ass? ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
S: To cover their ass. Exactly. Because wouldn't that be an obvious test of iridology? So if I get my kidney whacked out, why doesn't my kidney fleck show up, you know?<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So what logical fallacy do you think that is? ''(pauses)'' That is special pleading.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, wait, wait! You didn't give me a chance to think about it! ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
S: Gotta be quicker than that, Rebecca; come on. That's special pleading. All of these are special pleading: pregnancy, the surgery. So why don't these things show up in iridology, you know, because they've been proven not to. And they say, "oh, that's because under anesthesia, the nerve impulses are discontinued", which is ''false'', by the way, so it's also a false premise. You don't discontinue nerve impulses under &mdash; that doesn't mean anything. And they certainly don't anesthetize your eyeballs when you had your kidneys taken out. So that's a false premise, but it's also just special pleading. There's no particular reason, based upon anything that anyone is claiming about iridology, that it wouldn't change your iris if other things would. Same thing with pregnancy. The fact that it's normal versus a disease state doesn't mean that it wouldn't have an effect, physiologically, on some other part of the body, especially if it were intimately connected to it the way they argue that it is. So those are just forms of special pleading.<br />
<br />
== The Scope of Skepticism <small>(43:06)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: That's all for the specific e-mails for this week. However, I did want to bring up next in a separate segment a discussion that is in response to some e-mails that we've been getting. I just want to basically lump these e-mails together into the bigger topic and discuss it. And that's basically "what is the scope of skepticism?" What kinds of things does skepticism cover? And specifically, some people have asked us what is the scope of our show. What topics do we talk about or not talk about, and have we made specific choices or decisions about what kind of things we will talk about.<br />
<br />
P: I was hoping people could discern that by listening.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, to some degree, I mean. Basically, to lay it out, our philosophy is what we call "scientific skepticism". The earliest reference to that phrase that I have been able to find was Carl Sagan in ''The Demon Haunted World''. But we basically use that to refer to our philosophy, which is the notion that all claims to truth, to factual truth, should be subjected to appropriate scientific analysis, to analysis for logic and evidence, and that acceptance or rejection should be apportioned to the evidence. It is certainly dependent upon a naturalistic and materialistic philosophical worldview, which basically means we operate in a realm in which we deal with the material world functioning under natural processes. We do not allow for magic or supernatural explanations. Now, within the skeptical community, there's a bit of &mdash; and I'm sure within philosophical circles &mdash; there's a discussion about whether or not science ''requires'' that we live in a naturalistic, materialistic universe, whether science can be used to ''prove'' that we live in a naturalistic or materialistic world, or that science just makes the arbitrary choice to limit ourselves to that because that's how it works. And I think, in fact, we discussed this topic to some degree on one of our [[SGU Episode 3#Interview with Massimo Pigliucci (16:22)|early, early podcasts]] when {{w|Massimo Pigliucci}} was on with us. And, basically, our position is that we cannot know, basically, if we live in a purely materialistic or naturalistic universe, because any hypothesis that deals with something outside of the natural world, that deals with the supernatural, cannot be investigated scientifically.<br />
<br />
P: By definition.<br />
<br />
S: By definition. Now this is where &mdash; not by choice. Some people have said, well, we choose to limit ourselves to the natural and to leave out the supernatural. It's not a choice; it's by necessity. The scientific methodology, empiricism, ''requires'' that, because supernatural causes, causes that are outside of nature, cannot be held to any kind of laws or any kind of restrictions. The best example is God, you know. Does God exist or not exist? Well, that's not really a scientific question. If you define God as an all-powerful being that lies outside of the laws of our universe, you can never use the laws of the universe to prove that he doesn't exist. So you can never use any kind of empiricism or scientific method, because whatever outcome of any experiment or observation you choose to make, you can always say, "well, God intended it to be that way." There's absolutely no constraint you can put on it.<br />
<br />
P: Gods and deities are a matter of faith, and that is not our bailiwick.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. So you could say that questions that are outside of the realm of science are properly dealt with as matters of faith, and, basically, meaning that they're not knowable. You can only just have an arbitrary personal or subjective decision about those, but there is no sort of empiricism that you could bring to bear, and therefore, all we say is that that's outside the realm of science. It's outside the realm of scientific skepticism. It's important to define it as such, but we don't specifically deal with it. Honestly, we don't care what people believe. What we care about is the processes of logic and science. However, I think where people get confused is they say, "well, so you don't deal with quote-unquote 'religion'". And we clearly do deal with religion and with religious topics. We deal with creationism, for example. It's hard to get us to stop talking about creationism. But we deal with religion to the extent that it intrudes upon science.<br />
<br />
P: Right. When it crosses the line.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So if you say you can scientifically prove the existence of God, well, you're in the realm of science. Then we can address whatever arguments you're making that are within the scientific realm. If you say you have faith in God, well, good for you. What could you say about that? You can't disprove someone's arbitrary faith. So we do deal with religious topics, and, fortunately, modern religions freely trample on science and logic, so it's not like we have to restrict ourselves in any way. The other questions that come up &mdash; we deal with politics or with sociological questions, and, again, because this is our interests, this is where we think our talents lie, we like to restrict our topics to ones that have some kind of scientific angle. Where politics intersects science, we'll talk about that. But not purely ...<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, for politics in general, I've seen skeptics just tear each others' throats out, because it's always, "you know, you're not being skeptical enough about X or Y," ...<br />
<br />
P: I think it's true. Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ... and you can't. You just can't. It's not going to (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
P: It's true. Emotions intrude into all of this.<br />
<br />
S: And in my logical fallacy article, I talk about this a little bit too, that there are some questions that require a value judgment. Right? And whenever you have to make a value judgment, then you're outside of the realm of pure empiricism or objectivity. And those questions are inherently irresolvable, because it comes down to some kind of personal choice that you make, some kind of personal judgment that you make. What things do you value in your life? So we don't deal specifically with those issues, and that's very much the realm of politics. Politics is about making those value judgments. We feel that politics should be ''informed'' by science, and that politics should not ''intrude'' upon science, and to that extent, we do talk about it. I know {{w|Chris Mooney (journalist)|Chris Mooney}}, who [[SGU Episode 15#Interview with Chris Mooney|was on our show]] &mdash; again, he wrote the book ''The Republican War on Science'', and he defines his realm very much as the intersection between politics and science. And, again, those are issues that we address as well.<br />
<br />
P: In our own country, I wouldn't personally limit it to the Republican party. Our entire government is ''shockingly'' lacking in scientifically literate people.<br />
<br />
S: Right. I was just giving that example because he was on our show, but you're right. I mean, every &mdash; if you have a political agenda, or a sociological agenda, or a religious agenda, chances are you're going to put that ahead of logic and evidence, ahead of science. And if the social structures are such that you have the power to do so, you'll probably oppress the process of science. We feel that that is our bailiwick, as you put it, that whenever that happens, whenever ''anything'' intrudes upon science, then that's a topic that we will happily discuss.<br />
<br />
P: Well, you know, we discuss these other topics, by the way: faith, politics, very passionately. We just don't do it when we're wearing our skeptical hats and certainly not during The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. Of course, personally, we have political opinions, etc. Just not part of the show, as interesting as they may be. So, that should address those questions of, you know, we don't deal specifically with faith, we don't deal specifically with politics, but they copiously intrude upon science, and whenever they do, we're there. Anybody have any other observations they'd like to make about that before I segue to another topic? So let's move on to Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(51:50)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: So every week I come up with three science news items or facts. Typically two are genuine and one is fictitious, and I challenge my panel of expert skeptics to sniff out the fake. A couple of times, and I'm going to do it again this time, instead of science news items, I've come up with common misconceptions. So what I'm going to do: I have three common scientific misconceptions. Two of these are false, meaning two are actually misconceptions. One of the following statements, however, is true. Got it? So two of these are false, and one is true. And you guys have to tell me which one is true. Ready? All right, so number one: reentering spacecraft are heated primarily due to friction with the atmosphere. Item number two: the sky is blue because air is blue. Item number three: the Earth's magnetic poles lie just beneath the surface near the north and south geographic poles. Perry, why don't you start us off. So which one of those is true?<br />
<br />
P: Ah, you know, the one that sounds simplest and most true to me that I've always heard is the first one. Spacecraft encounter tremendous friction by the particles in the atmosphere and their tremendous speed. The other two don't sound correct. I would say number one is true.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I agree. (''unintelligible'') It's more complex than that. What was the third one?<br />
<br />
S: The earth's magnetic poles lie just beneath the surface near the north and south geographic poles.<br />
<br />
R: I don't like the sound of that, either. I'm going to go with Perry.<br />
<br />
S: Number one is true?<br />
<br />
R: Number one. Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Bob?<br />
<br />
B: Say the third one again. Magnetic poles.<br />
<br />
S: The Earth's magnetic poles lie just beneath the surface near the North and South geographic poles.<br />
<br />
B: Okay. That is false. There a little bit aways off of the geographic poles. They're not right there. The geographic pole ...<br />
<br />
S: That's consistent with what I'm saying.<br />
<br />
B: Right. That is false. So that's not my answer. Right? That's false.<br />
<br />
S: I did not mean to imply very near. They're just near. They're not right on the north and south geographic poles, they're just nearby.<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
P: Bob just rings the joy of of these things.<br />
<br />
B: All right. Calm down. Friction with the atmosphere? Yeah, that's a common misconception. It's not really friction with the atmosphere. It's because it's compressing the air in front of it, which is then heating up, which is then transferring that heat to the object. A lot of times they show fiery meteors &mdash; the meteorite's on fire in the ground, and generally that's not the case. Sometimes they can even still be pretty cold, because it's really &mdash; they're not really heating up because of friction. It's because they're compressing the air. And sky is blue because air is blue: that is absolutely correct. That is true. Number two is the answer.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Let's start with number three. So Perry and Rebecca both thought that number one was true, and Bob believes that number two is true.<br />
<br />
B: No, I know it.<br />
<br />
S: So everyone agrees that number three is fiction, that number three is a myth. And it is a myth, although not for the reason that you thought. So the magnetic poles are indeed allied &mdash; you know, "near" is a vague term.<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: It is "near" the north and south pole. It's not right on it. It's not near meaning like feet away. It is miles away.<br />
<br />
B: Many, yeah, right.<br />
<br />
S: But I think, in fact, the north magnetic pole points somewhere in northern Canada or something. But the bit about that which is incorrect is that they're not just beneath the surface.<br />
<br />
B: Right. Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: They're actually deep within the earth's core, and the reason why this comes up a lot is because if you look at high school science textbook, they always draw the magnetic field of the earth as if the magnetic lines are coming out of the surface of the Earth. And they're not coming out of the surface of the Earth, they're coming out of the core of the Earth.<br />
<br />
B: Well I wouldn't &mdash; I don't think you need to go quite that far, though, Steve. I don't think it's the actual core that's generating the magnetic field. I think that it's the movement of the molten rock, the molten elements that are actually generating it. So I don't think you need to go quite to the core. Maybe the mantle or the lower mantle.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's not what I read.<br />
<br />
B: Really.<br />
<br />
S: It is the core. It's not the very center of the Earth, but it is as deep as the core.<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: If you actually had to draw the bar magnet, which a little bit inaccurate in any case, it would actually be short and within the Earth's core. So when you draw those magnetic lines, it should be close to the center of the Earth, not coming out of the surface of the Earth.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, definitely not the surface, but I don't think it quite gets to the core. I'm actually going to look into that. But you're essentially right.<br />
<br />
S: I have a reference. I have a reference that said the core.<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: But it's not the surface.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: That's the common misconception.<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: Perry and Rebecca thought that reentering spacecraft are heated primarily due to friction with the atmosphere. You thought that was true.<br />
<br />
R: Apparently we're wrong.<br />
<br />
P: Obviously.<br />
<br />
S: That is incorrect, and Bob nailed this exactly. It is, in fact, due to compressing the air in front of it, which is partly why the capsules are shaped the way they are.<br />
<br />
P: They press the air, thus creating friction.<br />
<br />
S: No.<br />
<br />
B: No.<br />
<br />
S: Friction implies rubbing one thing against the other. There is a little bit of friction, but it causes an insignificant amount of heat.<br />
<br />
P: So you admit there is a little friction.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
P: Well, there you go.<br />
<br />
S: I said it was heated primarily &mdash; ''primarily'' &mdash; due to friction with the atmosphere, because there is a little bit of friction. But it is far and away mostly due to compressing the air, and when you compress a gas, you heat it. And that creates the heat which then heats the tiles or whatever the ablative surface. That heat &mdash; basically you're transferring the momentum of the spacecraft to heat energy, which then goes away, and that's what slows it down. And number two, Bob is absolutely correct, is true. The sky is blue because air is blue. The common misconception is that it's due primarily to the scattering of light, and that, of course, does take place, but it's more accurate to just say that the atmosphere, air, is, in fact, blue. Now it doesn't look blue when we're looking through it the same way that a glass of water doesn't look blue. If you're looking through just a small amount of water, it looks clear. But if you look at the ocean, it looks blue, because that's what the color of water is. And the same is true of the air. You just have to look through a lot more of it before you can see the blueness of it. So when you're looking through the entire depth of the atmosphere against the black of outer space, you can see it's blue color. But when you're looking across the room, it just looks clear to you.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, I hope you don't intend to minimize the importance of Raleigh scattering. To me, the whole idea that the sky is blue because air is blue is kind of like a more general way kind of like standing back and saying "Yeah, the sky is blue because air is blue." It's a more general way to look at it, but still, Raleigh scattering is still a key component to why that's so. But it's like saying the rose is red and then start talking about molecules and frequencies and things. You don't really have to go &mdash; you don't have to be that technical. You can just it's reflecting red light.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean I think you're right. Just looking further donw at his explanation, he then goes on to say &mdash; if you do then say "why is the air blue?", then you do have to resort to things like Raleigh scattering ...<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: ... to explain it. Well, Bob, good job. I think Bob gets the credit for getting this one correct. And that is our show for this week. Bob, Perry, Rebecca, thanks for joining me again.<br />
<br />
P: Very well. Very well. We'll see you all next week.<br />
<br />
B: Good show, Steve.<br />
<br />
R: It's been a blast.<br />
<br />
S: Next week, we have Eugenie Scott on our show.<br />
<br />
B: Woo-hoo!<br />
<br />
S: She is the foremost offender (sic) of evolution in this country.<br />
<br />
B: Offender? Foremost offender?<br />
<br />
S: Defender. Defender.<br />
<br />
P: She's an awesome (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: We'll talk to her about ...<br />
<br />
P: She's great.<br />
<br />
S: ... creationism and intelligent design. It will be a good discussion. So until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
=== Toxic Cruise <small>(00:50)</small>===<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Bosnian Pyramids <small>(9:24)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails ==<br />
=== Bubble Universes <small>(17:24)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well, we... let's move on; we have a lot of e-mail, and some excellent questions we've been getting in e-mail, so I want to try to cover a few of those this week. The first question comes from Elias Luna in Bronx, New York, from nearby. He writes:<br />
<blockquote>I have a couple of questions which I would love to hear you guys discuss. What's your view on {{w|Michio Kaku}}'s ''[pronounced kuh-ku]'' view of the universe as a {{w|Multiverse|multiverse}}, that we are nothing but a bubble in a sea of bubbles.</blockquote><br />
<br />
B: I believe it's pronounced "Michio Kaku".<br />
<br />
S: Is it kah-ku?<br />
<br />
B: I believe.<br />
<br />
S: <blockquote>If there is a so-called multiverse, when did it begin? I'm not speaking of our universe, because we all know the universe began with the Big Bang. But let's say there is a multiverse. What is beyond the multiverse and beyond what's beyond the multiverse and etc.? You see, it's a paradox and only way to escape is to say there's always been something somewhere, literally for infinite and will be, so there is no end or beginning in the grand scheme of things. And if there is an infinite amount of universes or multiverses there, there's an infinite amount of civilizations.</blockquote><br />
<br />
Then he goes on along&mdash;basically, that's his question. He asks a couple of other questions. So let's talk about that first. Bob, do you wanna start?<br />
<br />
B: Well, yeah, his main question in the beginning is: if there is a multiverse, when did it begin? And you really can't ask that question, because, by definition, you have no contact to any of these other bubble universes within the multiverse or meta-verse. So how could you determine how old it is. I mean, our universe could have been created 15 billion years ago, but it might be a baby compared to other universes. Or it could be the first universe in a bubble universe. So you really can't know how old this multiverse might be. You just can't get outside of your universe, by definition.<br />
<br />
S: Right. And just to clarify, that's because, ''by definition'', our universe is everything that we can interact with. Anything that can affect us, everything that we can affect, everything that we can see is, by definition, part of our universe. So, from a theoretical point of view, another universe that was part of a grander multiverse would be forever inaccessible to us.<br />
<br />
B: Right. And imagine if somehow you could contact another bubble universe within the multiverse, even that wouldn't help you, because who knows how old that universe is and how long that bubble has been around. You'd have to literally examine every one and find out what the oldest is and say, "OK, this is how old the multiverse is", so it's really inconceivable.<br />
<br />
S: The other possibility is that&mdash;and {{w|Stephen Hawking|Stephen Hawkings}} ''[sic]'' wrote about this&mdash;that the age of the universe or the multiverse may be finite but unbound. This is kind of a hard concept to get across, but it's kind of like the surface of a sphere. It's finite; the amount of space that it occupies is finite, but there's no beginning or end that you can point to; it's continuous. There's no specific boundary, but it's finite. So the time dimension of our universe may be the same thing. Maybe we didn't have a beginning and we won't have an end, even though the amount of time that it occupies could still be finite.<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean that we're going to get around to the beginning again at some point?<br />
<br />
S: I don't know. I don't know. When you start to talk about cosmology like that, whenever physicists write about that kind of cosmology, they always say something to the effect "you could really only express these ideas in, like, 12-dimensional derivative calculus, but I'm going to try to sort of paraphrase in English".<br />
<br />
B: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
S: So I mean, these are concepts that you can't really even understand, except on a very sophisticated mathematical level. So who knows what it all really means. But... This is also, by the way, Kaku is the guy&mdash;he was one of the co-originators of {{w|String theory|string theory}}, right? That's what it says on his [http://mkaku.org website], anyway.<br />
<br />
B: OK. I'm not sure if he was one of the originators.<br />
<br />
P: So what is the point of positing the hypothesis&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: That's exactly what I was going to get to next, Perry. This all very interesting, but unless you can derive from these notions a testable hypothesis, some way to test it, then it doesn't really enter the realm of empirical science. At best it's a mathematical construct and it's just a mathematical theorem. Now, mathematical theorems can be the beginning of a scientific exploration or a scientific investigation; it could say, "here's a model that's internally consistent and is consistent with what we observe". But you still have to then test it against something. You have to find some way to find out if it's actually real or not. And no one's been able to figure out a way to test string theory or the multi-universe theory or any of these other sort of big ultimate cosmological questions. So, at the moment, they still lie in the realm of theoretical mathematics and not empirical science.<br />
<br />
=== Limits of Black Holes <small>(22:16)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So let's go on to the second e-mail. This one's a lot shorter. This one is from Dan Hanch in California, and he writes,<br />
<blockquote>Is there a limit to the amount of mass that a black hole can consume? Why don't the super-massive black holes in the center of galaxies gobble up all the surrounding highly dense stars, gases, etc.?</blockquote><br />
<br />
B: Let me grab that one again, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, go ahead, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: If that's all right. I know of no limit, and I can't think of why there would be a limit. As you just keep feeding a black hole matter, there's no reason why it's just not going to just keep sucking it up. Now I've heard&mdash;I've read estimates of super-massive black holes that have millions of Solar masses, and of course, a Solar mass is the matter equivalent in our sun. That's generally how they rate them, by Solar masses. I've seen them listed as millions of Solar masses and even billions, but recently, they found a super-massive black hole that is generating energy at the rate of 20 trillion suns. I've never heard an amount that huge. They never went into the trillions; I've only seen billions. But 20 trillions is truly staggering.<br />
<br />
P: That's a lot of suns.<br />
<br />
S: Was that part of the recent discovery, Bob, that some black holes generate more energy than they consume?<br />
<br />
B: No, that's unrelated to {{w|Hawking radiation}}.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Are you doing about free energy there?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, are you saying we could have black-hole-powered cars one day?<br />
<br />
P: Is that what you're talking about?<br />
<br />
B: That would be interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Theoretically. It was a recent discovery that's also been on a lot of the news sites recently. So-called green or energy-efficient black holes. But the implications of that, obviously, are unclear.<br />
<br />
B: So I don't think there's any limit. I mean, a black hole could conceivably hold the entire universe worth of matter. There's no reason why it couldn't do that. So there is no limit. The other question that he had was: why doesn't it just keep on sucking up everything. People seem to think that black holes&mdash;I mean, they do have immense gravitational pull, but they seem to think they their reach is just beyond what anything else with mass has, but that's not true. If our sun turned into a black hole at this moment, I don't see any reason why the Earth wouldn't still continue to orbit around it. It wouldn't necessarily increase its gravitational pull and suck us it. Now, of course, it would have an event horizon and things like that. It'd have all these wacky features of a black hole, but it doesn't mean it's going to reach out any farther than anything else with that much gravitational pull. So, generally a black hole will clean out the area around it, and it'll create and produce lots of energy in the form of X-rays and things, things that... it's not leaving the black hole, it's just being created and emitted before it crosses the event horizon. So once it sweeps out that area, then the black hole become quiescent and pretty much just waits around for more matter to slowly get a little closer and closer and closer.<br />
<br />
R: So it really is... it's more like a hole and not like a vacuum. Some people seem to think that it kind of acts like it's sucking, but it's really more of a hole.<br />
<br />
S: No more than any other object with similar gravity, basically.<br />
<br />
B: Right. Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: And the gravity still falls off as the square of the distance, which is...<br />
<br />
B: Right. Exactly. That's not violated with a black hole.<br />
<br />
S: And also, another way to think about it is that it kind of is sucking in everything that's around it, that's close to it, as you say, but also, you know... things are really far away in the galaxy and outer space, and there's still the speed of light that can't be violated, so. Even if things do move towards the gravitational pull of a black hole, it would take a long time to draw in things that are very, very far away.<br />
<br />
B: Right. And beyond a certain distance, you're essentially... it's just not there to you, gravitationally, because once you go a certain distance away&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: You would orbit around it, but it wouldn't draw you in.<br />
<br />
=== Origin of Life <small>(26:15)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: A closer question; this one regards the origin of life. This one is from Jeremy Freeman of Springfield, Illinois. Jeremy writes:<br />
<blockquote>I recently discovered your podcast and just got caught up to your most recent. I'm disappointed that now I have to wait for you to release a new one, but you guys put on a great show; very interesting and entertaining.</blockquote><br />
<br />
Thanks.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>In one of your podcasts and in your article, "[http://www.theness.com/index.php/the-starchild-project/ The Starchild Project]"</blockquote><br />
<br />
That's an article, by the way, that you could find on the [http://www.theness.com NESS website], on our Articles page.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>You refer to a point that Carl Sagan made and said that it would be incredibly unlikely that human and alien DNA would be compatible because it would be from two completely different evolutionary genetic code sequences. I agree with that line of thinking, but it got me thinking about a related question that maybe you could shed some light on. If I understand correctly, we share a genetic code with every other known form of life on Earth.</blockquote><br />
<br />
That is correct.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Therefore, we assume that an alien life form would have a genetic code from its planet of origin. What prevented multiple starting points of life on Earth? I mean, why is there only one set of genetic code? Why on a planet as hospitable to life as Earth, wouldn't life have started from multiple points? Why doesn't life spark even now, to create a new random microbe with different code to start a new evolutionary chain? I would like to know if scientists have attempted to answer this in the past and what their conclusions or theories were. Without an answer to that question and no evidence that shows that this has happened and that life died out, the likelihood of life on other planets decreases dramatically, at least in my mind. I'm not ready to go to the creationist route, but without a good answer, it's really bugging me.</blockquote><br />
<br />
R: We've got one on the cusp here, guys&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: We need to draw him in.<br />
<br />
R: &mdash;we need to pull him back and save him from the creationists.<br />
<br />
S: So let me start with this one. So it is true that all life on Earth shares the same genetic code, and what we mean by that is the DNA sequence&mdash;you know, the DNA has four {{w|Base pair|base pairs}}; like, four letters to the alphabet and each sequence of three base pairs codes for a specific either {{w|Amino acid|amino acid}} and then there are a few that regulate the transcription of that. Like for example, they may tell the transcription process to stop at a certain point. So that's the code. Which three letters equal which amino acid. There is absolutely no reason, by the way, why any two different species on this planet would have the same genetic code, except because of heredity. So therefore, we can conclude that all life on Earth is related to itself, to each other. Life that evolved on another planet&mdash;first of all, we wouldn't even know that they would have DNA. They may have some completely other molecule serving as their genetic code.<br />
<br />
B: Could be a triple helix.<br />
<br />
S: Whatever. It could be proteins. It could be something other than deoxyribonucleic acid, right? It could be some other chemical compound. And even if it was something like DNA, there's no reason why they would have randomly come up with the same genetic code, the same three letters equaling the same amino acid. They may, in fact, use a different... we use twenty&mdash;all life on Earth is derived from twenty amino acids. They may have a different set of amino acids then what we have. They may use some that we don't and not use some that we do. Now, in terms of has life arisen multiple times on this planet and why doesn't it. Well, one reason is that the conditions which were suitable for the origin of life on the early planet are no longer present. For examine, there probably was a lot more electrical storms early on. There was no oxygen in the atmosphere. There were probably lots more ammonia and methane and other compounds. So the early Earth, which may have been more suitable for the generation of life is not the conditions that exist now. Also, once life did arise, it would use up a lot of the resources in the environment. It would basically fill all the niches pretty quickly on the planet. And that would crowd out any new life trying to get a foothold. So whichever life arose first would have probably just crowded out any other later attempts at life arising.<br />
<br />
Also, interestingly, there is one form of life that has a slightly different genetic code than everything else. Do you guys know what that is? I know Bob does.<br />
<br />
R: A fundamentalist?<br />
<br />
B: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
S: That's not a bad guess. It's actually {{w|Mitochondrion|mitochondria}}. Mitochondria, which are organelles inside of our cells&mdash;they're the energy factories of our cells. They were probably a primitive form of bacteria that then formed a symbiotic relationship with larger cells. And they have a slightly different genetic code than does all other life. So, probably mitochondria represent a very early side branch of the branch of life that led to all existing life today. It's possible that they were a completely separate branch of life, but probably not, because they're still too similar. The genetic code's not totally randomized; it's very similar to other life; just a few differences. So what that also implies is that... Well, you know, there could've been multiple origins of life, multiple early branching points with different genetic codes, but only one branch survived. The one that is&mdash;later gave rise to all of life. So the early sort of chaotic biological systems on this world may have been competing and one branch survived. And that's why we only have genetic code at this point in time. So, those are some possible answers. Probably the most far out answer, which is still a possibility, is that life on Earth was actually {{w|Panspermia|seeded from outer space}}. If a meteorite landed on Earth that had some templates of DNA or whatever, that could have then seeded this planet with life. And then of course, if life on this planet arose from one point of seeding, it would all have the same genetic code. That's still very hypothetical, but that's another sort of possibility compatible with that. So, interesting question, and yeah, there's quite a bit of speculation that is compatible with what we see.<br />
<br />
=== Iridology <small>(32:34)</small>===<br />
We received another e-mail from Kim, who asks:<br />
<blockquote>Please talk more about alternate medicine on your podcasts. I know that's one of your primary interests and I'm dying to learn more about it since I know so little about it. I have a co-worker who believes very strongly in diagnosing people's ailments by reading the iris of the eye. I believe it is the iris.</blockquote><br />
Yes.<br />
<blockquote>"Iridology", I think he calls it.</blockquote><br />
Yes, it is called iridology.<br />
<br />
P: That's it.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Do you know anything about that? I had thyroid cancer and he told me he could see it a mile away in my eyes. I thought he meant I looked sad or something and was stunned when he explained what he meant. Nice of him to tell me after the fact.</blockquote><br />
<br />
B: Ha-ha!<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Thanks again,<br /><br />
Kim</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, yes, I'm very familiar with iridology. {{w|Iridology}} is a pseudo-science which basically involves making diagnoses by reading the color variations and flecks of color in the iris of the eye. This was cooked up about 150 years ago in the mid-1800s by a Hungarian physician named Ignatz von P&eacute;czely. I think that's how you pronounce it. And he said&mdash;he based it on an anecdote, where when he was a child, he found an owl who had broken his wing and he noticed a dark fleck in his iris, and when he fixed his wing, the dark fleck went away. And he said "hmmm". So then he started looking at the irises of his patients and thought he could correlate the flecks with what diseases they've had.<br />
<br />
P: Sadly, he was wrong.<br />
<br />
S: Apparently. Now, this was popularized in the United States by Bernard Jensen, D.C., Doctor of Chiropractic, who actually passed away in 2001.<br />
<br />
P: Terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
S: He wrote several books about it; he was basically the leading American iridologist. He wrote, for example, "nature has provided us with a miniature television screen showing the most remote portions of the body by way of nerve reflex responses". So what he and other iridologists believe is that the iris is connected to every other part of the body through nerve endings, and whenever any part of the body is diseased, those nerve endings will change the iris, and you can read that by looking at the iris. Of course, these nerve endings have never been discovered. You can dissect the eye and... there is no such structures; they just simply don't exist. And there is absolutely not a single bit of science to support any of the claims of iridologists. I was reading an iridology website, and it's... you know, it's incredible how they just make these bold-face statements which are completely false. Under "what is iridology", they write, "iridology is the scientific analysis of patterns and structures in the iris of the eye which locates areas and stages of inflammation throughout the body". So that's... first of all, it's not a scientific analysis, 'cause there's zero empirical evidence that there's any correlation between how the iris looks and any disease or health state.<br />
<br />
Further, despite the fact that this is utter and unmitigated nonsense, it has actually been researched to test the claims. Now, in 1979, Bernard Jensen&mdash;again, this is like the leader of American iridology, so you can't claim this guy didn't know what he was doing in terms of iridology&mdash;and two other proponents failed a scientific test in which they examined the photographs of eyes of 143 persons. Basically, some of them had kidney&mdash;clear-cut, proven kidney disease; the others were normal controls. And they could not do any better than chance, just to say who had kidney disease and who didn't have kidney disease. Surprise, surprise. And there have been other studies, very similar, where they basically do no better than guessing. In fact, there were... one great study where they actually sent some iridologists photographs of, like, monkey eyes and glass eyes, and they couldn't even tell that they weren't actually human eyes. They were, like, diagnosing the glass eyes.<br />
<br />
P: ''(chuckles)'' The main problem with iridology is it's not as funny as {{w|Phrenology|phrenology}}, reading the lumps on your head. So it never made it into the {{w|Bugs Bunny}} cartoons.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)'' That's true.<br />
<br />
P: That's the main problem with it. So Bugs Bunny was never able to ridicule iridology. Basically, what it comes down to, it's a cold reading. You know, the iridologists look at your iris and they give you a medical cold reading. And they also write that if... The changes may not show an ''existing'' disease, it just shows that you might have a predisposition to a disease. So of course, if they say&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Hedge your bets.<br />
<br />
S: &mdash;"I see kidney disease in your iris", and you don't have any kidney disease, they can say, "oh, well you might get kidney disease in the future".<br />
<br />
R: Or maybe your mother has kidney disease.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So does that sound familiar? That's exactly what the psychics do. "Oh, this isn't true of you? Well, it may be in the future. Just hold on to that; that's something that may come true in the future."<br />
<br />
B: So they could never be wrong.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: But... there is something that I learned about irises that are very fascinating. Did you know that your iris is the most unique, you know, "fingerprint", quote-unquote, for you, more so than even your DNA? The pattern that your iris is so unique, it's more unique than your DNA. And that's why the&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: Well, technically, Bob, you can't be more unique, because unique means one of a kind. So you're not using that term exactly correctly.<br />
<br />
P: Very good.<br />
<br />
B: Well, I mean, you could be a twin and you're not unique but still your iris would be unique.<br />
<br />
S: Right. I know what you're saying. There are more points of difference between the irises of two people than there are points of difference between their DNA.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So that's what you need to say. But anyway... So let me read you... That is true, and iris scans may become a method of identification in the future. And the reason for that is because&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Well it is now! It is now.<br />
<br />
S: That's true. You're right.<br />
<br />
B: &mdash;biometric scanning. If you do one iris, it's unbelievably accurate, but if you do both irises, it's like one in 20 billion or 50 billion or something crazy.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's because&mdash;the reason why there could be more detail in the iris than in your DNA is because our bodies are more complex once they develop than is encoded in the DNA. The DNA just has rules for how things develop, but by following those rules, you can actually get more information than is in the DNA itself. This is why our brains contain more information than our DNA does, right?<br />
<br />
B: Exactly. Right. Exactly.<br />
<br />
== Name that Logical Fallacy <small>(39:12)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: I do wanna&mdash;Now, last week we began the Name that Logical Fallacy segment and I wanna continue that this week. And I was reading through our list of logical fallacies. I also had written an article for the {{NESS}}&mdash;again, that's on our website&mdash;about logical fallacies and I realized that I really need to update it. So I've been doing that for the past week or so, and hopefully fairly soon, I'll publish an updated article on arguments in general, premises, etc. and also a greatly expanded list of logical fallacies. I searched for other peoples' lists of logical fallacies just to see what they contain. The longest list that I found was 43 different logical fallacies. We have our [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logical-fallacies top 20 on the website]. But actually, when you read them, the vast majority of the new ones or the extra ones that are not on our list are really just sub-types or derivations of existing ones. So, it depends on whether or not you want to lump various fallacies into one type or general type or you want to split out even fine differences between them. So, the list could be longer or shorter depending upon that. But anyway... so keep an eye out for my expanded description of logical fallacies. But while I was reading the iridology site, one paragraph struck me; I thought that would be a good one to try to identify a subtle logical fallacy.<br />
<br />
Now on this same site, and of course again, we'll have the link for you, it describes how iridology works, what it shows, and there's also a paragraph on what iridology will ''not'' show. Let me read this for you guys and tell me if anything strikes you as a logical fallacy. It says<br />
<blockquote>Iridology will not show or name a specific disease, but provides information about the body tissues which indicate tendencies toward conditions of disease, often before symptoms appear. Iridology will not reveal surgery performed under anesthesia, as nerve impulses are discontinued. Iridology cannot locate parasites, gallstones, or germ life but will indicate the presence of inflammation and toxic conditions. It will not show pregnancy, as that is a normal function of the female body.</blockquote><br />
So what do you guys think about that? Now I admit you have to have that into a little bit of context of the claims for and against iridology. Well, why do you think they go out of their way to say that having your kidney removed surgically won't cause your iris to change, to reveal, for example, kidney disease?<br />
<br />
R: To cover their ass? ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
S: To cover their ass. Exactly. Because wouldn't that be an obvious test of iridology? So if I get my kidney whacked out, why doesn't my kidney fleck show up, you know?<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So what would you&mdash;what logical fallacy do you think that is? ''(pauses)'' That is special pleading.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, wait, wait! You didn't give me a chance to think about it! ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
S: Gotta be quicker than that, Rebecca; come on. That's special pleading. All of these are special pleading: pregnancy, the surgery. So why don't these things show up in iridology, you know, because they've been proven not to. And they say, "oh, that's because under anesthesia, the nerve impulses are discontinued", which is ''false'', by the way, so it's also a false premise. You don't discontinue nerve impulses under&mdash;that doesn't mean anything. And they certainly don't anesthetize your eyeballs when you had your kidneys taken out. So that's just&mdash;that's a false premise, but it's also just special pleading. There's no particular reason, based upon anything that anyone is claiming about iridology, that it wouldn't change your iris if other things would. Same thing about pregnancy. The fact that it's normal versus a disease state doesn't mean that it wouldn't have an effect, physiologically, on some other part of the body, especially if it were intimately connected to it the way they argue that it is. So those are just forms of special pleading.<br />
<br />
== The Scope of Skepticism <small>(43:06)</small>==<br />
S: That's all for the specific e-mails for this week; however, I did want to bring up next in a separate segment a discussion that is in response to some e-mails that we've been getting. I just want to basically lump these e-mails together into the bigger topic and discuss it. And that's basically "what is the scope of skepticism?"; you know, what kinds of things does skepticism cover? And specifically, some people have asked us what is the scope of our show. What topics do we talk about or not talk about... Have we made specific choices or decisions about what kind of things we will talk about.<br />
<br />
P: I was hoping people could discern that by listening.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah... to some degree, I mean... Basically, to lay it out, our philosophy is what we call "scientific skepticism". The earliest reference to that phrase that I have been able to find was Carl Sagan in ''The Demon Haunted World''. But we basically use that to refer to our philosophy, which is the notion that all claims to truth&mdash;to factual truth should be subjected to appropriate scientific analysis to... analysis for logic and evidence, and that acceptance or rejection should be apportioned to the evidence. It is certainly dependent upon a naturalistic and materialistic philosophical worldview, which basically means we operate in a realm in which we deal with the material world functioning under natural processes. We do not allow for magic or supernatural explanations. Now, within the skeptical community, there's a bit of&mdash;and I'm sure within philosophical circles&mdash;there's a discussion about whether or not science ''requires'' that we live in a naturalistic, materialistic universe; whether science can be used to ''prove'' that we live in a naturalistic or materialistic world, or that science just makes the arbitrary choice to limit ourselves to that because that's how it works. And I think, in fact, we discussed this topic to some degree on one of our [[SGU Episode 3#Interview with Massimo Pigliucci (16:22)|early, early podcasts]] when {{w|Massimo Pigliucci}} was on with us. And basically, our position is that we cannot know, basically, if we live in a purely materialistic or naturalistic universe, because any hypothesis that deals with something outside of the natural world, that deals with the supernatural, cannot be investigated scientifically.<br />
<br />
P: By definition.<br />
<br />
S: By definition. Now this is where&mdash;not by choice. Some people have said, well, we choose to limit ourselves to the natural and to leave out the supernatural. It's not a choice; it's by necessity. The scientific methodology, empiricism, ''requires'' that, because supernatural causes, causes that are outside of nature, cannot be held to any kind of laws or any kind of restrictions. The best example is God, you know, does God exist or not exist? Well, that's not really a scientific question. If you define God as an all-powerful being that lies outside of the laws of our universe, you can never use the laws of the universe to prove that he doesn't exist. So you can never use any kind of empiricism or scientific method because whatever outcome of any experiment or observation you choose to make, you can always say, "well, God intended it to be that way." There's absolutely no constraint you can put on it.<br />
<br />
P: Gods and deities are a matter of faith and that is not our bailiwick.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. So you could say that questions that are outside of the realm of science are properly dealt with as matters of faith, and basically meaning that they're not knowable. You can only just have an arbitrary personal or subjective decision about those, but there is no sort of empiricism that you could bring to bear, and therefore, all we say is that that's outside the realm of science. It's outside the realm of scientific skepticism. It's important to define it as such, but we don't specifically deal with it. Honestly, we don't care what people believe. What we care about is the processes of logic and science. However, I think where people get confused is they say, "well, so you don't deal with quote-unquote 'religion'". And we clearly do deal with religion and with religious topics. We deal with creationism, for example; it's hard to get us to stop talking about creationism. But we deal with religion to the extent that it intrudes upon science.<br />
<br />
P: Right. When it crosses the line.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So if you say you can scientifically prove the existence of God; well, you're in the realm of science. Then we can address whatever arguments you're making that are within the scientific realm. If you say you have faith in God; well, good for you. What could you say about that? You can't disprove someone's arbitrary faith. So we do deal with religious topics, and fortunately, modern religions freely trample on science and logic, so it's not like we have to restrict ourselves in any way. We also... the other questions that come up&mdash;we deal with politics or with sociological questions, and again, because this is our interests, this is where we think our talents lie, we like to restrict our topics to ones that have some kind of scientific angle. Where politics intersects science, we'll talk about that. But not purely&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, for politics in general, I've seen skeptics just tear each others' throats out, because it's always, "you know, you're not being skeptical enough about X or Y"&mdash;<br />
<br />
P: It's true.<br />
<br />
R: And you can't. You just can't.<br />
<br />
P: It's true. Emotions intrude into all of this.<br />
<br />
S: And in my logical fallacy article, I talk about this a little bit too, that there are some questions that require a value judgment. Right? And whenever you have to make a value judgment, then you're outside of the realm of pure empiricism or objectivity. And those questions are inherently irresolvable, 'cause it comes down to some kind of personal choice that you make, some kind of personal judgment that you make. What things do you value in your life? So we don't deal specifically with those issues, and that's very much the realm of politics; you know, politics is about making those value judgments. We feel that politics should be ''informed'' by science, and that politics should not intrude upon science, and to that extent, we do talk about it. I know {{w|Chris Mooney (journalist)|Chris Mooney}}, who [[SGU Episode 15#Interview with Chris Mooney|was on our show]]&mdash;again, he wrote the book ''The Republican War on Science''&mdash;he defines his realm very much as the intersection between politics and science. And again, those are issues that we address as well.<br />
<br />
P: In our own country, I wouldn't personally limit it to the Republican party. Our entire government is ''shockingly'' lacking in scientifically literate people.<br />
<br />
S: Right. I was just giving that example because he was on our show, but you're right. I mean, every&mdash;if you have a political agenda, or a sociological agenda, or a religious agenda, chances are you're going to put that ahead of logic and evidence, ahead of science. And if the social structures are such that you have the power to do so, you'll probably oppress the process of science. And that's... we feel that that is our bailiwick, as you put it, that whenever that happens, whenever ''anything'' intrudes upon science, that is a topic that we will happily discuss.<br />
<br />
P: Well, you know, we discuss these other topics, by the way: faith, politics, very passionately. We just don't do it when we're wearing our skeptical hats and certainly not during The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. Of course, personally, we have political opinions, etc. Just not part of the show. As interesting as they may be. So, that should address those questions of, you know, we don't deal specifically with faith; we don't deal specifically with politics, but they copiously intrude upon science, and whenever they do, we're there. Anybody have any other observations they'd like to make about that before I segue to another topic? So let's move on to Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(51:50)</small>==<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9888Template:SGU episode list2015-05-07T18:34:54Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 40 as finished; 41 in progress.</p>
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* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
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</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_40&diff=9887SGU Episode 402015-05-07T18:31:54Z<p>Jim Gibson: Complete transcription.</p>
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|episodeDate = April 26<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
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|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, April 26, 2006. This is your host, Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are Rebecca Watson ...<br />
<br />
R: Hello.<br />
<br />
S: ... Perry DeAngelis, ...<br />
<br />
P: Good evening, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Jay Novella, ...<br />
<br />
J: Good evening.<br />
<br />
S: ... and just returning from a trip to Las Vegas, Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: And boy are my arms tired.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, oh, man!<br />
<br />
R: That's the best you could do?<br />
<br />
J: That's how we're starting the show? On a low note, Evan? <br />
<br />
R: That's terrible.<br />
<br />
E: I've traveled twelve hours today. I was up at 6:30. I'm just getting now to my computer at home.<br />
<br />
R: That's no excuse.<br />
<br />
E: So cut me a little bit of slack.<br />
<br />
P: How was your trip to Sin City, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: It was very, very good. It was productive.<br />
<br />
P: Excellent.<br />
<br />
R: Productive? Hm.<br />
<br />
E: It was productive.<br />
<br />
J: Did you gamble at all?<br />
<br />
E: I did gamble.<br />
<br />
J: What did you play? What's your game?<br />
<br />
E: Well, I played a little bit of craps and won $25, and then I stuck fifty cents in a slot machine and won $1300. I hit a jackpot.<br />
<br />
P: Is that true?<br />
<br />
R: Are you serious.<br />
<br />
E: Yup, it's absolutely true.<br />
<br />
P: Wow!<br />
<br />
J: Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
R: There you go. That's fantastic!<br />
<br />
S: Congratulations.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you.<br />
<br />
R: Slot machines are great.<br />
<br />
J: Do you know what's so funny? Bob, who is absent tonight, was on a cruise last week, and Bob won $1000 playing blackjack.<br />
<br />
R: Wow.<br />
<br />
E: Sweet.<br />
<br />
J: I'm going to go gamble soon.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, there's got to be some sort of skeptical sign in a favorable part of the heavens or something.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
E: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Totally.<br />
<br />
S: Bob is not with us tonight. He is at a physics conference that he will report to us on next week in the next episode.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, oh!. I washed a pair of pants, and I found a $20 bill balled up in the pocket when I took them out.<br />
<br />
J: That's amazing!<br />
<br />
E: Well, we're all just making money left and right. This is incredible.<br />
<br />
J: I can't take this.<br />
<br />
R: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: Now I'm looking through the latest issue of ''The Skeptical Inquirer'', a must-read, by the way, for any self-respecting skeptic.<br />
<br />
P: Fine publication.<br />
<br />
S: Fine publication. And I see here on page 11 a picture that is captioned ''Skeptical youth at the conference'', and this is talking about James Randi's Amazing Meeting, which was in Las Vegas in I believe it was in January, including our very own Rebecca Watson.<br />
<br />
R: Oh my God! Really? I actually didn't even know that.<br />
<br />
S: You didn't see that, yet? There she is in all her glory.<br />
<br />
R: No.<br />
<br />
S: You were one of the "skeptical youth" at the Amazing Meeting.<br />
<br />
R: I don't think I'm a youth any more. Am I?<br />
<br />
E: Well, compared to skeptics out there you most certainly are.<br />
<br />
R: I'm 25. I guess it's relative.<br />
<br />
P: Did you seem youthful at the meeting? Did you look around yourself?<br />
<br />
R: I think I was rather youthful, yeah. That's true.<br />
<br />
P: There you go.<br />
<br />
R: Is it a good picture, because I haven't seen that?<br />
<br />
S: It's you and a few other guys: Dave Hawley, Matt Fiori. Do you know these guys?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, yeah. Wait. What are you suggesting? That I'm hanging out in Vegas with a bunch of guys and I don't even know who they are?<br />
<br />
S: Well, there's the picture.<br />
<br />
R: Uh, uh. Yeah, thanks, Steve.<br />
<br />
P: We have photographic evidence.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you for besmirching my character on the podcast, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: You're welcome. Anytime.<br />
<br />
=== Rebecca's Biblical Challenge Follow Up <small>(3:12)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now, Rebecca, just a quick follow up. On a previous podcast, I issued you a specific challenge: to find a reference in the Old Testament to Mothra, although I did widen it a bit to allow you some leeway. It could be any Japanese monster, movie-monster: Gamera, Mothra, take your pick.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: This was spawned by the notion that some literalists, creationists interpret some Old Testament passages about behemoths and leviathans to mean references to dinosaurs, even specific dinosaurs, and you said you could find a passage that you could twist into a reference for Mothra. So, were you successful in your attempt?<br />
<br />
R: I did even better. I found one in the New Testament, ...<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ... which is so much better than the Old Testament, because, you know, it's newer. But in Matthew -- it's true -- Matthew 6:19 says "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy." Now, I know I don't have to explain this to you guys, but just to spell it out for our slower listeners: Japan represents the overabundance of wealth, the treasures on Earth that are being stored up. The rust obviously represents the red-winged monster Rodan.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: And then, of course, there's the moth "Mothra." QED.<br />
<br />
P: Very excellent.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, not bad, not bad.<br />
<br />
P: Excellent.<br />
<br />
R: Not bad? That's perfect. That's right on.<br />
<br />
S: Pretty good.<br />
<br />
J: I don't know.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Sonoma Bigfoot Revealed <small>(4:45)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now, speaking of Las Vegas, which brings us to Penn and Teller. Penn and Teller have the wonderful show on Showtime called ''Bullshit'', where they poke relentless fun at the most ridiculous stuff that they can come up with, which is not challenging. They have an upcoming episode where they are discussing cryptozoology, including ...<br />
<br />
R: Actually, I think it just aired.<br />
<br />
S: Did it just air?<br />
<br />
R: I think it aired two days ago.<br />
<br />
S: Well, on the website, they had a little preview of the show. Did you see the whole episode, Rebecca? <br />
<br />
R: I haven't seen it yet, no.<br />
<br />
S: So the preview shows footage of Bigfoot, footage which is known as the Sonoma Bigfoot, because of its alleged to have been filmed in Sonoma, California. And this was filmed in November of 2005, and on their show, on the show ''Bullshit'', Penn and Teller are admitting that they hoaxed the Bigfoot footage.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it's really awesome, because they released this footage back in November, and a lot of Bigfoot enthusiasts really grabbed ahold of it. Like the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, BFRO.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they took the biggest hit.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. Because they're like ''the'' big Bigfoot organization, I guess, and on their website they grabbed ahold of this stuff, and they said things like "we've seen hoax footage over the years, but there's no way that this could of been hoaxed. It's definitely not a man in a costume." Like, just open up your mouth wide and insert one big foot, because ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, open mouth and insert big foot. They mentioned specifically about anatomical details: the length of the arms, the nature of the walk, a lot of the kind of things that's familiar with other Bigfoot video analysis.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And of course, they were proving, basically, that they ''cannot'' distinguish a hoax from what is real.<br />
<br />
R: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: Although, to be fair, I searched as extensively as I could online, on the Sonoma Bigfoot, and there are quite a number of Bigfoot sites that thought it was a hoax.<br />
<br />
R: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: So they didn't take in everybody. Certainly, the ones who were taken in, that's a huge hit to their credibility, which I suppose is the whole point of the hoax to begin with.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah. And if you watch the video, it's so obvious they didn't even try. It's so badly done.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think they tried to do it so badly, that that would make it all the worse, that somebody would believe it.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: But I think they might've gone a little bit too far. I'm sure that they'll play up on their episode, the one's who bought it hook, line, and sinker. But it does backfire a little bit in that the pro-Bigfoot sites that were critical of it, can say "Ah, we knew that was a hoax," so that ups their street cred, basically.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: It kind of had mixed results, and I think that if you're going to do something like that, and not that we haven't talked about it. That's kind of the fantasy of all skeptics is to pull the big hoax, right? But it is very difficult. If you're going to do it, you have to make sure you fool everybody. Otherwise, it does backfire on you. The other potential downside to it is that you have to make sure that you so carefully and fully document your hoaxing that nobody can claim afterwords that you're lying about having hoaxed it. That it's actually ...<br />
<br />
R: Which is exactly what they're doing right now.<br />
<br />
S: Which some people are now still doing. They think it's still real. This all goes back to &mdash; the first person to do this was James Randi.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah?<br />
<br />
S: Project Alpha. <br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Are you guys familiar with this÷<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
J: Yes. Excellent.<br />
<br />
S: Where Randi planted a couple of mentalists, magicians, in a psychic researcher's lab, and through sleight-of-hand, bending spoons, mostly, they completely had these guys going. They had them completely hoodwinked as well as a large portion of the psychic research world, until Randy revealed the whole thing to be a trick. Those who bought into it &mdash; same story &mdash; those who bought into it, their credibility was severely hurt, and there even many research programs that were shut down because of that loss of credibility. So it had the intended effect, although it had other reverberations. For example, striking a wedge between the skeptical scientific community and the psi research community. It significantly contributed to their isolation from the rest of the scientific world, which I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, do you remember when you had the Bigfoot program not too long ago and you interviewed someone ...<br />
<br />
S: From the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society.<br />
<br />
J: Right. I remember you saying &mdash; I was listening to that episode not too long ago, and I remember you saying that in a lot of these &mdash; the footage that people see, there's that particular gray area where the quality of the film is at a certain level, the distance from the subject is at a certain level, and I noticed that in the Penn and Teller video that they really did do what you described in that video. They had the distance and the blurriness and the unsteadiness of the camera.<br />
<br />
S: Right, yeah. It was enough to be provocative, but not in sufficient detail to be definitive.<br />
<br />
R: Right. And Steve, I just wanted to pop back to what you were saying before, really quickly, about how a lot of people are now saying that Penn and Teller are faking, that they were faking it.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: And how important it is to document how you're faking it, but I just have to say that so often it doesn't really matter. There will always be those true believers ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: ... who are going to say "No, it's real." I've given people cold readings where I've told them afterward "that was a fake, and here's exactly how I did it," and they'll say "no, no, you really have psychic powers, you just don't know it."<br />
<br />
P: You just don't know your own power.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: That always happens.<br />
<br />
P: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: But at least with like a video of a Bigfoot, you can have another camera taping the hoaxing.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: You can have some concrete evidence to show the process of doing it.<br />
<br />
R: They do end up showing the guy who played Bigfoot in the video, and they have him reading the emails that they got as a result of it on that episode of ''Bullshit''. They do show the suit and how they made it and (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
S: It's entertaining. It's at the level of the show. I mean I love the show; I think it's great, but they definitely err more on the side of entertainment.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah, definitely. They've never said that they're doing anything like science. They're just having fun.<br />
<br />
S: No, no. <br />
<br />
E: We've all seen how the crop circles are made, and that's obvious.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
E: It's very easy to document that hoax.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: That's been done. People have documented themselves hoaxing crop circles ...<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ... that were later pronounced genuine by the crop circle community.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, some of the most complex things.<br />
<br />
E: You don't have to hide a camera, or anything. You just tape doing it, and then you bring out the the crop circle believers the next day, and they're all over it, and you show them the tape back here &mdash; "we did it."<br />
<br />
P: I believe you're referring to cereologists.<br />
<br />
S: Cereologists.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
P: That's what they call themselves.<br />
<br />
S: As they like to refer to themselves ...<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
E: Scienticians.<br />
<br />
S: ... in classic pseudo-scientific fashion.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, my.<br />
<br />
P: Cereologists!<br />
<br />
S: Evan, when you were in Las Vegas, did you see Penn and Teller?<br />
<br />
E: I did, in fact, yes. At the Rio. They do a show every night except Tuesdays. They're dark on Tuesdays. An excellent show, outstanding. Two things of note: the first thing was before the show, they invite everyone up on stage to inspect a wooden box that's on a set of castor wheels, and you can do whatever you want. You can touch it; you can move it. It's a box, and, obviously, you know, a person would fit inside this box, and everyone went up there, inspected that box, and to start the show, the piano player says "okay, here they are &mdash; Penn and Teller. Penn comes walking out one side of the stage, goes over to the box, taps on it, and out pops Teller, out of nowhere. It's just really incredible. It really got the show off to quite a bang, and everyone was just in stitches laughing, and everyone was &mdash; nobody saw how Teller got in that box. That was pretty ...<br />
<br />
J: Evan, was is it possible that he was in there the whole time?<br />
<br />
E: No. Absolutely not. He snuck in somehow.<br />
<br />
P: Do you think it was a miracle?<br />
<br />
E: Yes, absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it was some sort of trick?<br />
<br />
E: It was a perfect deception.<br />
<br />
P: Come on, Steve, Occam's razor: a miracle, a trick, I think trick gets cut off first.<br />
<br />
E: What was even more impressive ...<br />
<br />
S: It is the more complicated explanation.<br />
<br />
E: The other thing I thought that was even more impressive is that they had a stack of five books, joke books, and according to Penn these are the top five joke books off of amazon.com. He hands them to a member of the audience, all right, tells the person "choose a book," all right, choose any one of those five, and then hand it to the person in back of you. And then that person hands it back of them, and it works its way through about eight sets of hands, somewhere to the back of the room. The person then opens the book anywhere. Penn doesn't know which book you're looking at. He opens the book, you choose a joke, and Penn is able to "psychically" come up with the punchline for the joke that you are thinking about. It's a wonderful cold reading trick that he does, and he did it to perfection. It was very, very impressive.<br />
<br />
P: That's awesome.<br />
<br />
: How was the joke?<br />
<br />
E: I don't recall. It was something about the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire. I don't even remember what the punchline was.<br />
<br />
S: I don't know how they do it, but it probably wasn't cold reading. They were cheating. He had some way of knowing what joke they were looking at.<br />
<br />
E: Well, he explained in the context. This is in effect what the cold readers do. He says they don't even do it half this good.<br />
<br />
S: No, they don't.<br />
<br />
E: That he can do it, and if he's telling you that it's a trick, then everyone &mdash; he wants to make sure every one in that audience knows that psychics are absolute BS.<br />
<br />
S: Right. The best of the cold readers are mentalists. The psychics who do cold reading, whether they know that's what they're doing or not, are not that good at it. Like John Edwards really is not that good at cold reading.<br />
<br />
R: Right. He's terrible.<br />
<br />
P: That's why he's not on TV anymore.<br />
<br />
E: He's horrible.<br />
<br />
R: He is on TV. He's on Women's Entertainment, because that's what entertains women. Women's Entertainment &mdash; WE TV.<br />
<br />
P: Seriously. I did not know that. <br />
<br />
R: Swear to God.<br />
<br />
P: Well, he's not on NBC anymore.<br />
<br />
S: If I were a woman I'd be insulted.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah. And plenty women are.<br />
<br />
J: Is John Edwards a faker, or do you think he is a self-deceiver?<br />
<br />
R: He's a faker. He's a fraud.<br />
<br />
E: He's a faker.<br />
<br />
R: I know you weren't asking me, but that's just fact. He's a fraud. And he knows it.<br />
<br />
P: He's also the biggest douchebag in the Universe.<br />
<br />
R: He is.<br />
<br />
S: I was trying to think of a way to say it a little more diplomatically, but the bottom line is, when you can see him using cold reading techniques consciously, statistically, he's got to be deliberately faking it. Do you know what I mean?<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: You can't be deceiving yourself when you're using conscious deceptive techniques.<br />
<br />
P: He's a con artist. That's the official stance of the New England Skeptical Society.<br />
<br />
S: Right. In our opinion. He's a con artist.<br />
<br />
P: You told us off-air that you spoke to them briefly, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, well what they do is after the show, they go out into the lobby, and you can have your picture taken with them. They'll sign autographs, and they'll talk to you for a little while. So, I did get a chance to speak with both of them, and although nothing official, I did invite them onto our show, so that we could interview either of them or both of them, and they said that they would seriously consider it.<br />
<br />
S: Their people will talk to our people.<br />
<br />
E: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: Great.<br />
<br />
E: I did speak to one of their PR people as well. They all have our business card, and I'm hoping to hear from them in the near future so that we can make an arrangements and have them on this podcast for you.<br />
<br />
S: I would love to have them on the show. <br />
<br />
R: Can I also &mdash; can I just mention that the bullet catch that they perform that was designed by Banacek, who is another really amazing magician that people should check out if they've never heard of him. He's a great mentalist. Yeah, he's amazing.<br />
<br />
E: I didn't know that.<br />
<br />
=== Channeling John Lennon <small>(16:33)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Let's go on to our next news item this week: "TV Seance Claims to Have Reached John Lennon." So in a brazen attempt to exploit the memory of John Lennon, a pay-TV service in-demand aired, I believe, on Monday &mdash; I didn't pay the 10 bucks to see it ...<br />
<br />
R: Aw.<br />
<br />
S: ... aired a live séance in which they purport to speak to the ghost of John Lennon.<br />
<br />
P: Did he sing?<br />
<br />
S: I don't suppose any of you caught this?<br />
<br />
P: No.<br />
<br />
R: No.<br />
<br />
E: No, I didn't.<br />
<br />
S: They had on their EVP, which stands for electronic voice phenomena, specialist Sandra Bellinger to examine the voice, and she proclaims "It's the real deal. That's very consistent with a class A EVP" -- that's good pseudo-scientific jargon, there -- she said regarding the level and clarity of the voice. She also says the voice sounds like how Lennon would have talked.<br />
<br />
R: If he were dead.<br />
<br />
S: If you were dead, I guess. What a surprise. <br />
<br />
R: And who's going to disagree with here, seriously.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, were they like listening to it and like "Is that you, John Lennon?" "Yes, it's me." Are you kidding me?<br />
<br />
P: It's so stupid.<br />
<br />
S: It's lame. This is the same people a couple years ago in 2003 that attempted to contact Princess Diana through channeling.<br />
<br />
P: Did that one work?<br />
<br />
S: No.<br />
<br />
P: No.<br />
<br />
S: So they're making a (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
E: So that's called English channel.<br />
<br />
J: What did John Lennon have to say?<br />
<br />
S: You know, because I don't want to discourage people from paying the 10 bucks, they were not releasing any specifically what he said during the alleged séance.<br />
<br />
E: Did they mention if they informed Yoko Ono of this or if she had any comment?<br />
<br />
S: Yoko One, to her credit, declined to comment.<br />
<br />
E: Good.<br />
<br />
S: And their long-term spokesman said that this was an exercise in tacky, exploitative, and far removed from the icon's way of life.<br />
<br />
P: Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: So Lennon's people were pretty condemning of the whole affair.<br />
<br />
J: I can't help but think, like, let's suppose together that okay this really does exist, right? What's going on on the other side? If you're the ghost of John Lennon, we'd hope that he's in heaven, right? Ghosts exist and let's say heaven exists.<br />
<br />
R: Well, just imagine there's no heaven.<br />
<br />
J: Is he straining on the other side to communicate? Like was he hearing them in the same ridiculous manner that we're hearing him? As blurry and fuzzy to him? Is he waving his arms? What's going on?<br />
<br />
S: I always thought they were playing charades. "I see an M. Is it an M?"<br />
<br />
P: I imagine mostly what he does is think of ways to haunt David Chapman. I imagine that is what he probably spends most of his time doing, I'm guessing here.<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(19:26)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: We do have a large number of emails, which keep coming in, and which is great. We appreciate all the emails that you send us. I'm going to read a select few. I'm going to start with actually three emails, all of which provide either some small correction or addition to one of our recent podcasts. Now one of the great things about doing a show like this and as our community of listeners is growing, there's always somebody out there who knows probably more about a specific topic that we do. Especially when we stray from the things that we've really researched and we're talking a little bit more off-the-cuff. There's always one layer more of detail or accuracy or precision that you can get to. So, and it's great to get that level of clarity and detail into our shows. So definitely send us those corrections and additions. However, we are definitely getting to the point where we can't read them all on air. We are working, especially Jay, our webmaster, is working on developing our bulletin board, and either through that or something similar, we're going to provide a location on our website where listeners can not only discuss our shows, they can also add their links and references, and maybe make some additions or corrections as necessary, and we'll talk about the ones that are especially important or interesting on-air. But I'm going to mention a few that we did get over the last couple of weeks.<br />
<br />
=== Hurricanes <small>(20:49)</small>===<br />
S: The first one is about the global warming and hurricanes. This email is from Keith, who says<br />
<blockquote><br />
Hi, guys. In your latest podcast you were discussing the impact of global warming on hurricanes. Steve and Perry stated that statistically we would have more storms, hurricanes with global warming. I think the current research says that we would have more intense hurricanes, but we have no evidence of more frequent hurricanes.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Then he gives a reference, which we have on our website. He says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I know this is a minor point, but you guys always seem concerned with being accurate, which I appreciate.<br />
<br />
Avid fan, Keith<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Again, thanks Keith for writing us, and I did check this out. I try to do as much background research as I can. The key reference is on pewclimate.org, and that's basically correct. The current evidence shows that increasing ocean temperatures, whether you think it's due to man-made global warming or not, increases, definitely increase the intensity of hurricanes. However, so far, there's no evidence that it increases the number of hurricanes. The number of hurricanes recently has, in fact, been increasing, but it fits into the pattern of waxing and waning number of hurricanes over the last hundred years. So, again, we get to that same sort of controversy of: is the recent increase a trend or just part of the normal oscillation. It doesn't really change the essence of what we were talking about, but it's a good example of how there's always that extra layer of detail to get to.<br />
<br />
=== Birthday Problem <small>(22:17)</small>===<br />
S: The second correction comes from Mike Chartier (or chart-ee-er), who writes<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I would like to correct your birthday problem posed in the first part of the latest show. First off, the problem should be stated ending with at least 50 and not a 50-50 as you stated. The correct answer to the problem is 23, not 20.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Basically, this is the ''birthday problem'', where, again, this was sort of an off-the-cuff comment. How many people would you have to have in the same room in order to have a greater than 50% chance that two of them have the same birthday? And I recalled that as being 20, although Evan, you say that you said 23.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, and I did, and you know what, Steve? I do have it on that tape. I happened to record that lecture we did years and years ago ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: ... at Southern Connecticut State University, and at that lecture we presented the number being 23.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I had stated off of memory as 20, but 23 is the accurate number. That's when it gets a little bit over 50%.<br />
<br />
=== Evolution Books <small>(23:13)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The third correction &mdash; this is actually more of an addition. This one comes from Roy Peterson in the UK. Roy writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I have just downloaded your latest podcast, which was recommended via the Skepticality Forum.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
That's interesting.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I was flabbergasted that your recommendations ...<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
R: I think that was me, actually.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, thank you.<br />
<br />
E: We have a mole.<br />
<br />
R: I was pretty upfront about it.<br />
<br />
S: Well, good work.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I flabbergasted that your recommendations to a listener's voice request for more information on evolution did not include one of Richard Dawkins books. What about ''The Selfish Gene'' or ''The Blind Watchmaker''? These are classic publications on the subject. You naughty people.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
and he sent that with a little frowny-face.<br />
<br />
R: I love when our listeners call us naughty.<br />
<br />
S: Sometimes we are very naughty. Well, Roy, I definitely appreciate your recommendations. We'll add them to our list on that notes page. ''The Selfish Gene'' and ''The Blind Watchmaker'' are absolute classics in evolutionary writing. And this was not deliberate on my part. It just happened to be the books I had on my shelf that I was looking at. Richard Dawkins and, really, that was at one end of the spectrum in terms of some controversies of modern evolutionary thinking, and Gould and Eldridge are at the other end of the spectrum. So the two books, ''The Selfish Gene'' and ''The Blind Watchmaker'', are important, not just for completeness, but also to provide good balance to Gould's take on modern evolutionary theory. Which is a very interesting topic. We don't really have time to get into it completly here. It has a lot to do with the inherent progressiveness of evolution, and can you understand evolutionary theory at the gene level, or do you really have to look at it at multiple levels: gene versus species versus populations and even ecosystems. Very, very interesting details about the way evolution progresses and the way natural selection works and operates. So, I accept those additions to our recommended evolutionary reading.<br />
<br />
=== Bananas and Logical Fallacies <small>(25:19)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The next email: it's about logical fallacies. This one comes from Mark Smith in Lansing, Kansas. He says<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
My only suggestion ...<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
I'm sorry, he starts out writing about Dianetics, and basically just telling us how ridiculous it is. He says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I'm still laughing years later at how ludicrous Dianetics is.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
and then he goes into a question. He says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
My only suggestion for the show would be to put more of an emphasis on logical fallacies like the ones listed on your webpage. Logic geek that I am, I find these very entertaining, and they're also useful everyday tools, especially in a popular culture where fallacious thinking runs rampant. But they're not always self-evident, even when they have been pointed out and identified. As a result, I think the nature of fallacies is too often ignored. For instance, I happen to have on my desk a booklet called ''The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools'' from the Foundation for Critical Thinking, and, amazingly, I can find no mention of logical fallacies anywhere in it. One idea for the show would be to spotlight a fallacy and explain it using current examples from popular media or the news. The examples wouldn't need to be from scientifically-oriented stories exclusively, as long as they include an attempt to support a certain position using a logical fallacy. I have a feeling that examples would be trivially easy to find. Thanks for the great podcast. In a perfect world, you guys would be paid like pro basketball players, and Rebecca would be on the cover of every magazine. Keep up the fight and keep living the sweet dream of reason. Woo-hoo!<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, Mark, thanks for the kudos.<br />
<br />
R: That's definitely the best letter, yet.<br />
<br />
S: That was the best ending to an email that we've had recently. That's not the first person to suggest that we should be making lots of cash doing what we're doing. I have the feeling that we're missing something. Maybe we're not as smart as we think we are.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, if there's a promoter out there who wants to work with us, I'm sure we'd be open to speaking with him.<br />
<br />
P: I'd be willing to shoot a few hoops.<br />
<br />
S: Well, Mark, we like your idea about showcasing logical fallacies. We have bandied that idea about in the past, and I do think it is time that we add a logical fallacy segment. So we're going to try out a couple of formats before we solidify something, at which point we might have even some intro music, but we're going to do a brief logical fallacy segment on this show. By coincidence, unless you are the kind of person who doesn't believe in coincidences ...<br />
<br />
R: At which point, go away.<br />
<br />
S: ... we had another email this week. This one comes from Cecil in Chicago, Illinois. And Cecil writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Here is a short clip of Kirk Cameron visiting with a guy who tries to prove the existence of God by exhibiting the amazing design of the banana. I checked the top 20, and I am not skilled enough to recognize a logical fallacy. Can you help?<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, this is a perfect opportunity to play our new game, which is ''Name That Logical Fallacy''. But, first, Rebecca, you specifically asked if you could give a synopsis of the banana argument.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The God of the Bananas is what I'm calling it. So give us the synopsis.<br />
<br />
R: I love this clip. For those of you who don't know, it's got Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains fame and some Australian dude sitting by a lake talking about silly atheists are. And at this particular part, he says, the Australian guy says "behold the atheist nightmare," and he pulls out a banana.<br />
<br />
S: I recoiled when I saw it.<br />
<br />
R: We all did, a little. The banana, you know, it's a banana. It's about seven inches long, an inch-and-a-half thick, or so. You know, your average banana. And he says "Now, if you have a well-made banana, you'll find on the far side there are three ridges, and on the near side, two ridges, ridges apparently being very important. And then he goes on to compare that shape with the shape of a human hand when holding the banana, and saying that they're a perfect fit. He says the banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other, at which point he slips the banana suggestively into his hand. He says "you'll notice that the maker of the banana, or mighty God, has made it with a nonslip surface -- another very important trait, apparently. He then goes on to say "God has placed the tab at the top. When you pull the tab, the contents don't squirt in your face." I'm not making this up. That's word-for-word.<br />
<br />
S: We have the link for the video clip. It is (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
R: He says when you pull the tab the contents don't squirt in your face, which is true, so long as you aim it away from you.<br />
<br />
S: Even if you shake the banana, they don't squirt in your face.<br />
<br />
R: You can do whatever you want to the banana, it will never squirt you in the face.<br />
<br />
S: And I've tried.<br />
<br />
R: And then my favorite quote: he says "the wrapper has perforations. Notice how gracefully it sits over the human hand. Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry. Just the right shape for the human mouth, and it's even curved toward the face to make the whole process easier.<br />
<br />
P: Now, wait a minute.<br />
<br />
R: Just to remind everybody, yeah, we're talking about a banana.<br />
<br />
P: This is a joke video, right?<br />
<br />
R: No.<br />
<br />
S: This guy is dead serious.<br />
<br />
R: This is dead serious, and he seems to believe that he's still talking about a banana by the end of that. Read from that what you will.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, God!<br />
<br />
S: Well, as Freud said, sometimes a banana is just a banana. Well, let's talk about the logical fallacies inherent in this argument. They are subtle, and I immediately teased out three logical fallacies. We'll see, maybe we could find more. I think the core logical fallacy is a tautology, mainly that the argument is because the banana is convenient for humans to eat that that convenience is what caused the banana to be the way it is. In other words, it was therefore specifically designed to be convenient for humans to eat, or the effect causing the cause. That's the core logical fallacy. But you have to couple the tautology with an unstated major premise behind the entire argument, which is that design implies God. That because the banana is designed to be convenient for eating, that God is the only thing that could have done that, and he is dismissing without specifically saying so, hence an unstated major premise, that evolution could not have resulted in a fruit that has features that make it convenient for human consumption. In fact, fruit evolved to be convenient for animal consumption. That's the purpose, evolutionary purpose of fruit. Animals will eat it.<br />
<br />
R: And not only that, Steve, but haven't humans genetically modified bananas to be ...<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, isn't this a case of artificial selection?<br />
<br />
S: In addition, thre has been some &mdash; I don't think it's been genetically modified, it's was just through breeding.<br />
<br />
R: Ah, right.<br />
<br />
S: A lot of the things, a lot of the crops that we use have been modified through human tinkering. So, to be even more useful for human consumption than the nature made it.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, did this guy think he was conducting science?<br />
<br />
R: I think he did. They seemed to think that this is like logical. They seem to believe that this is the death knell for atheism.<br />
<br />
P: I know it's not appropriate in our constant search for and endeavor at erudition on this program, but can't we simply say that this is asinine? I mean is it appropriate in this case? It beggars the imagination.<br />
<br />
R: Then we can't have fun dissecting his fallacies. And I really like dissecting his fallacies and saying that when we're talking about the bananas.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that is certainly more apropriate in this case.<br />
<br />
J: The guy is a total pervert. He's a pervert. "I like the way the banana feels in my mouth."<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Sometimes things are so absurd.<br />
<br />
P: Sometimes our initial reaction is that this is asinine!<br />
<br />
S: The initial reaction that it is asinine or absurd is appropriate and accurate. But, part of doing this show is to go beyond that. Let's take it the next step. And let's take great pains to explain exactly why it's absurd. The reason is that when you have these really extreme examples of logical fallacies, they make good examples to teach you how to avoid more subtle logical fallacies in claims that are not initially obviously absurd.<br />
<br />
J: What about all the fruits that exist that aren't easy to eat.<br />
<br />
S: Now, Jay, that brings up the third logical fallacy that I teased from this, which is the fallacy of inconsistency. If you're going to say that the convenience, the easy digestibility of the banana is evidence of a benign Creator, then you have to argue that everything in nature which is inconvenient and harmful is contradictory evidence or evidence against a benign Creator.<br />
<br />
P: It's evidence of Satan.<br />
<br />
R: The lobster is evidence that God hates us.<br />
<br />
S: The lobster, or have you ever tried to eat a pomegranate? <br />
<br />
J: Not going to happen.<br />
<br />
P: Or an artichoke? It might have choked Artie, but it ain't going to choke me.<br />
<br />
E: I ate six seeds of a pomegranate once.<br />
<br />
S: But, guys, don't miss the whole point of ''Name That Logical Fallacy''. Maybe in the future I might have to challenge you guys to see if you could come up with the logical fallacies.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I like this idea. I enjoy this.<br />
<br />
S: It is fun. <br />
<br />
== Interview with Brian Trent <small>(35:23)</small> ==<br />
Author of ''Remembering Hypatia''<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have a interview this week, an interview with Brian Trent, and let's go to that interview now.<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is Brian Trent. Brian, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
BT: Thank you for having me.<br />
<br />
S: Brian is the author of the award-winning historical novel ''Remembering Hypatia'', which is about the final collapse of enlightenment of the ancient world. He's also the author of numerous books and articles on topics as diverse as future immortality and the effect of modern technology on privacy and freedom. So, Brian, why don't we start by you telling us &mdash; just give us a synopsis of ''Remembering Hypatia'', and just thematically what is this book about?<br />
<br />
BT: Certainly. Well, the story takes place in the final days of not only the great library of Alexandria, one of the greatest repositories of learning in the ancient world, but also the last 23 days of the life of Hypatia, who was the last curator of that library. She was a mathematician and astronomer, a philosopher, and a teacher at a time when women were pretty shunned from learning to begin with. And she pretty much achieved the Renaissance man ideal, about a thousand years before it was fashionable. She was one of the most brilliant people in history. She was murdered, the eve of the dark ages, by a man who was later proclaimed to be a saint. Her death, her assisination, is one of ''the'' pivotal events. It pretty much closes off that era of history, the classical age of history, and we have then the medievalism that characterized the dark ages.<br />
<br />
S: Now, do you think that her death was just a milestone marking an inevitable transition, or do you think that her death actually contributed to or hastened the dark ages?<br />
<br />
BT: Well, she lived in a time when there was a &mdash; there was an upswing of religious fundamentalism, and, again, this is not about religious freedom. I mean Alexandria, where she lived, was a place that had rampant religious freedom. Earl Robinson described America one time and said that "all races and religions; that's America to me." Well, that same sentiment applies to Alexandria. It was a pluralistic community. It was a multicultural community, and there were, even with Christianity itself, there were different sects of Christianity, which would debate with each other and philosophize about the nature of divinity and the trinity and so forth. Well, there was a hardline faction, which was taking control of the city by force. Mostly through the force of personality of Archbishop Cyril, the guy would later have her murdered, and she stood against them very strongly, very publicly, and her death, I think &mdash; I think her death was a knock-out blow in that title fight. It showed people that if you stand up against the guy, you're going to get murdered, because nothing was done about it, and really no secular authority ever challenged that theocratic regime again.<br />
<br />
S: So, her death had a chilling affect on anyone else who would stand against the authority of the Archbishop.<br />
<br />
G: That's fair to say, and you have -- the next thousand years were characterized by that very hard-line, fundamentalist elements, at least until the first glimmers of the Italian Renaissance. So, it was a shift into an era of witch burnings and crusades, where knowledge was limited, first of all, and knowledge which disagreed with the prevailing theological notion of the universe was destroyed, for the most part. And at other times, it was just buried or sometimes literally painted in between &mdash; some monks in monasteries would fold papers of Archimedes in half and put new papers over it to make it nice and sturdy for their illuminated manuscripts. That's the kind of era that we saw for the next thousand years.<br />
<br />
P: What year was her murder, Brian?<br />
<br />
BT: It was in the fifth century, around 414 or 415 AD.<br />
<br />
P: And how long was the library in existence?<br />
<br />
BT: The library had been formed probably around nine years after Alexander The Great's death. When he created the city of Alexandria, quite literally, he drew it in the dirt, and it was after he died, it was built, probably around nine years later. So we're talking about a 700-year-old learning institution.<br />
<br />
S: And because Alexandria was such a well-traveled city and so cosmopolitan, pretty much every ship that came through its port, its manuscripts and whatever books it may have happened to have on board were copied and stored in the library of Alexandria. So it was an absolutely incredible repository of ancient writings and literature and knowledge. What a loss to history the destruction of that library was.<br />
<br />
J: Do we have an idea of what some of those books might of been? Like how advanced were their mathematics and their cosmology and things of that nature?<br />
<br />
BT: Well, certainly, we have some tantalizing glimpses. We have, for example, most school children today are taught that it was Columbus and Magellan who pretty much determined that the world was round, and this and that. But {{w|Eratosthenes}, two-thousand years ago, through mathematics alone, had figured out the shape and size of the Earth. He had measured the discrepancy of two shadows on June 21, and had the distance paced out and plugged into an equation and came up with &mdash; his answer was about one percent off. We have people like Heron of Alexandria, who would develop the concepts, admittedly very primitive, the concepts for steam engines. You have {{w|Archimedes}}, of course, one of the most unparalleled genius in all of human history, who'd come up with a fantastic war machine for use against the Romans, and he had, of course &mdash; and he is the one credited with any number of inventions: the screw that bears his name, his famous concept of the lever. The other thing, too, was the library was a dynamic place. You had {{w|Galen}} &mdash; there's another one, one of my favorites. Galen was a medical mastermind. He was so advanced with his medical techniques, his surgical techniques. He wrote a fifteen-book set on the human body, anatomy and physiology, and, I mean, I've seen side-by-side comparison of some his surgical tools with the tools we have today in modern surgery wards. Of course, the materials are completely different, but the concepts, most of the time the equipment itself is virtually identical.<br />
<br />
S: A lot of his anatomy is still relevant today, as well. He figured out a lot of the basics of anatomy.<br />
<br />
P: But he still believed in the {{w|Humorism|humoral theory}} though, right?<br />
<br />
BT: There were still the four humors and concepts were prevalent in Alexandria, but here &mdash; Galen certainly understood about the circulatory system. The blood didn't just swish around in the body. I liken it to one of my favorite writers in history is {{w|Lord Byron}}. He contracted a fever, and, of course, the prevailing idea at that point was to bleed the guy. And, of course, he died. I like to think about not just his death but all the deaths that people with Galen's knowledge, the people that built on things he knew, and if that work had been destroyed and lost, just think of what we could've accomplished. Even if you use conservative estimates, all the material had to be rediscovered.<br />
<br />
S: It wasn't entirely lost.<br />
<br />
BT: No.<br />
<br />
S: A lot of that knowledge actually was harbored in the Mideast, in Persia.<br />
<br />
BT: Right. In the Arab (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: In Persia. The dark ages was very much a European dark ages, and, meanwhile, mathematics and engineering and medicine and astronomy was thriving in the Middle East, in Persia.<br />
<br />
BT: That's right. When they conquered Alexandria in 646, a lot of those manuscripts &mdash; there were two things that happened, and I think it shows the two-sided human nature in a lot of ways. The invading Muslim armies, they destroyed a lot of the remaining literature that they considered to be infidel. The Christians had destroyed the pagan literature, and, of course, the Muslims destroyed a lot of Christian literature. But, as you said, not everything was lost, and that's how we know a lot about this place and a lot of references, a lot of fragments of books, and, finally, that we do know about. And it certainly did encourage them to come up with pioneering advances in mathematics. At the same time you had a fundamentalist element which reared it's head among their &mdash; in that religion as well. One of the last great ancient cities that had copies of Alexandria's books, not all of them, but a lot of the findings, was Constantinople. And when Constantinople was being assailed by Mehmed the Second, a lot of these scholars managed to escape with some of the books, and a lot of them settled in Europe, specifically in Florence, which is the seat of the Renaissance later. But, the books that were left behind were all destroyed.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BT: So, certainly, certain books were preserved, and great era thinkers, and so forth, were able to build on that, certainly. And that absolutely contributed to their golden age, which, as you mentioned, Europe was in the middle of the dark age when the Middle East was quite advanced. Now, today, in modern times, we see the opposite.<br />
<br />
S: Right. That's right. In fact, you can actually trace back some of the seeds of knowledge that led to the Renaissance back through Persia and into the ancient knowledge of the Greeks and Romans back to the library of Alexandria. So there is some continuity there, but, again, there was the thousand, 1500 years of philosophical, scientific dark ages. Interestingly, what I learned from studying that time is that technology still continued to progress fairly steadily in Europe throughout the dark ages. But it was more a dark ages of ideas, of inquiry, as well.<br />
<br />
P: What was the core? How would you characterize, Brian, the core feud between Archbishop Cyril and Hypatia?<br />
<br />
BT: Well, one of Hypatia's few surviving quotes was "all formal, dogmatic religions are fallacious and should never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final." It's one of the few things, and this did not sit very well with him, at all. This is a person who &mdash; Cyril, before he got to her &mdash; this is just not a nice man by any standards, at all. He had a grudge against the Jews, just the fact, you know, all the different pogroms he had begun, and he had them driven from Alexandria. That's directly laid at his feet. He also &mdash; this is particularly interesting &mdash; we talk about debate and coming to certain ideas and discussions. There were different sects of Christianity, like the Novatians and the Nestorians, and all these different people at different slices of opinion on that religion around God or on (''unintelligible'') prime mover, things like that. These debates used to thrive in Alexandria, even among Christianity. He put a stop to that. Him and his uncle, the Archbishop Theophilus, and his uncle had some sects exiled from the city on penalty of death.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the church at the time was building its power based upon authority.<br />
<br />
BT: Right.<br />
<br />
S: The idea was that knowledge descended from authority.<br />
<br />
BT: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And open-ended inquiry was completely incompatible with that.<br />
<br />
BT: Oh, completely.<br />
<br />
S: So that was the essence of the conflict, I think, was religious authority versus open-ended inquiry, and we know who won, right? That was the dark ages, right.<br />
<br />
BT: To put it &mdash; talk about an arena, a more ironic arena. Hypatia was, according to the historical record, dragged from her chariot, pulled into a church, and murdered right there.<br />
<br />
S: Her skin was flayed with abalone shells, is how Carl Sagan (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
BT: Shells, pottery shards, supposedly in reed baskets. They emptied it out at their feet. It was passed out among all the parishioners. In my book, I say it's passed out like some unholy Eucharist. And, in their hands, they all just go at her, and literally hack her and flay her to death.<br />
<br />
P: Excuse me, Brian, Alexandria wasn't a theocracy, right? The church wasn't in charge of the political state.<br />
<br />
BT: 391 A.D., the Edict of &mdash; prior to 391, we need to actually go back to Constantine and 311. Emperor Constantine, of course, he was the victor in an empire-wide civil war, and he chalked his victory up, as many, many leaders throughout history way before him, to divine endorsement. Since gave the Greeks the idea to take Troy the way they did, or (''unintelligible''), all these different deities throughout history. Well, Constantine chalked his victory up to a little-known deity at that time, which is Jehovah, and, of course, he is the one who created a state-endorsed religion. Christianity became the religion of the empire. But he still did allow religious freedom. He allowed other faiths to be tolerated. In 391, the Edict of Theodosius &mdash; that took the next logical, or as I had to say evangelogical, step, which was: if we're tolerating, if we endorse one religion, what are we doing tolerating these other ones? So, other faiths were outlawed throughout the empire. And pagan temples were destroyed, pagan priests, parishioners were converted at sword-point. Pagan priests and priestesses were killed, often crucified, despite the irony.<br />
<br />
R: And at that point, that was 391, but that wasn't the first major blow to the library, right? That was happening.<br />
<br />
BT: That was, yeah. The Serapeum was actually &mdash; it was a temple devoted to the god {{w|Serapis}}, who was pretty much &mdash; Alexander was unique. When the Greeks came into Egypt, they fused &mdash; I mean you had this beautiful cross-pollination of two very high civilizations: Egypt and Greece.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
BT: And they were fused, not just in architecture, but in a lot of ideologies and a lot of art. And Serapis, the Temple of Serapis, and all the documents that it had, was a concrete symbol of that. So it was a very clear target in 391, but the library itself did persist. The most basic reason is that we know Hypatia was working there. That she was returning from the library at the time of her murder, and that advances from history right as the upswing, the fundamentalist. Again, we see parallels of that today. Look in the Middle East. Look at how political cartoons are treated. Now the great library has been resurrected in our modern age. The {{w|Bibliotheca Alexandrina}} was created in Egypt, and it houses something like 4 million books and these like 10 billion webpages archived, and it's supposedly a really extraordinary building. But my question is &mdash; and I applaud it. There's no question about that, but are they going to be eager to stockpile certain, say, political cartoons or, say, {{w|The Satanic Verses}} by Rushdie or books like that? And, if so, does anybody really doubt that a certain faction would want to see that heathen institution or that sacrilegious institution burned to a crisp again?<br />
<br />
R: I think we need to look at it also as kind of a more insidious thing, because I think that often when we think of, say, the great library burning, we think of one big event, when there was so much going on and so much building up to it. I don't know if you know about Matthew Battles, the writer and Harvard librarian, but he wrote a really interesting study about the library, where he suggests that it wasn't just one great fire. He said it was "moldering slowly through the centuries as people grew indifferent and even hostile to their contents". So I think we need to always be on the lookout for that same kind of insidious undercurrent of hostility towards knowledge that could spring up at any moment, while it could've been there all the time.<br />
<br />
BT: Well, I think it always (''unintelligible'') -- I definitely agree. That Aristotlian inquiry that is really out of the Socratic method, the basis for the scientific method. These things are just and will always be, I think, a direct threat to certain kinds of people, certain people who have a certain ideology, a certain way of looking at world, and it's something that we have to conscious &mdash; I think it's something we always have to fight. We have to step into that arena and stand up for it.<br />
<br />
J: So, Brian, I find it interesting to think: it is even remotely possible that any kind of intellectual dark age could happen again? And during your research, what kind of conclusion would you draw from that?<br />
<br />
BT: I think it is a possibility. I think it's a terrible mistake for anyone to say it can't happen here, it can't happen again. And I think we have other concerns at this point. First of all, there are still book burnings that happen. We don't just have to point to the Middle East. In Pennsylvania, a couple of years ago, they were rounding up Harry Potter books and rock-and-roll CDs and having this huge bonfire. It was a church sponsored event. So we have it right here in this country. We don't need to go to foreign fronts to see that. Secondly, there's a different kind &mdash; I mean, we live in a world of mass production where literature is available so fast, at the speed of light &mdash; in 186,282 miles per second, you can look at anything you want in all this information. But at the same time, because of the digital nature of a lot of this knowledge, it can be kind of akin to &mdash; has anybody read {{w|Animal Farm}} by George Orwell? The animals had that list of commandments that they all were going to abide by, and slowly over time, that list would insidiously get shorter, but so shorter that they wouldn't actually notice it. It wasn't something sudden. It wasn't anything dramatic, but by the end of the story, when they do realize it, it's already too late. Everything has changed. A lot of the knowledge has been lost. The original decree of this new society has been completely mutated and perverted. So, I think that's something we have to worry about. Think of a digital razor to films and to books. People with any kind of axes, political axes to grind, or any religious axes to grind. I think it's important. A lot of this knowledge does pass through a limited number of hubs, and it is a rapidly diminishing media, if you think about it. So there are certain concerns.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I agree. This is always an interesting question, and this is something that often gets asked of us: in this modern age, do you really think that there can be another dark ages? And, I sort of think about it in two different ways. On the one hand, we are living in an increasingly worldwide culture with the Internet, with incredible access to and ability to reproduce information. So, it certainly, from that point of view, would be much more difficult for any institution or nation or power to really, completely put the clamp on information and inquiry in the way that was feasible and possible a couple of thousand years ago. But, on the other hand, we definitely see the effects of similar things occurring in pockets, in individual nations, or individual cultures. For example, in the Soviet Union there was the famous incident of {{w|Lysenkoism}}, where the Communist Party decided that this guy Lysenko, that his ideas about genetics and evolution, which were Lamarckian and incorrect, that that was the official state-sponsored genetical theory. And Russia is still, now, 30 years behind the rest of the industrialized world in genetics. They never caught up. It permanently set them behind. In this country, public understanding of evolution and, in fact, the number of world-class, top researchers in evolution in this country is much behind many other Western industrialized nations, and we certainly lag behind that area than we do in many other areas, largely due to the systematic campaign of fundamentalist and creationists against the teaching of evolution. So these kind of insidious, anti-intellectual, anti-inquiry movements can have far-ranging, cultural implications. But my hope is that we have crossed some point where we have enough of a worldwide culture that it would be impossible to do it to the thoroughness and extent of what happened in the dark ages. But, you know.<br />
<br />
J: China has their own version of the Internet.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
J: Somehow, they're able to limit access on a national level.<br />
<br />
BT: Every June third and fourth, the anniversary of {{w|Tiananmen Square}}, they black out that media that you're talking about, any mention of that horrible event, where all those thousands of protesters were destroyed. So, yeah, I completely understand and agree.<br />
<br />
P: That's until that regime falls, though. My personal view is that the regime in China is doomed to failure. Communism has been proven a failure. It's on the ash heap of history. China just hasn't caught up yet.<br />
<br />
S: It's interesting to see which way China will go. That's the last great experiment in pretty much exactly what we're talking about. Certainly, since the 1970s, since Nixon and detente with China, the big experiment has been: will exposure, even just through marketing, through commercial exposure to the West, errode China's iron grip on knowledge and information in their own country. I think we're still waiting to see how that's going to play out. But, certainly, the optimists are saying that China will either evolve away from totalitarianism and communism, and others think that at some point, the regime may just collapse like the Soviet Union did. We'll see. That's a very relevant social experiment that's occurring right now.<br />
<br />
BT: China just inducted private entrepreneurials and entrepreneurs into the Communist Party a few years ago, so I think I tend to be a little optimistic about that. On the other hand, there's just a concern about any kind of one &mdash; communism isn't the only form of totalitarianism. I mean you can have plutocracies; you can have anything at all, but I definitely think &mdash; I think it is destined to fall. It either seems to be &mdash; I think the creaking is being heard.<br />
<br />
S: And now, of course, we've talked about how the Middle East was the repository of ancient knowledge during the European dark ages, and now the roles are very much reversed. And I think it does remain to be seen how the Middle East is going to go in the near future. That part of the world seems to be largely under the grip of very extreme, radical fundamentalist notions, which are extremely anti-knowledge, anti-intellectual, and that could create an intellectual dark ages in that part of the world that could last for a very long time.<br />
<br />
BT: Well, the thing is, there was a crossroads in that culture, in which they had more of the moderate element and the hardline element. And unfortunately, the hardline was almost elected or appointed as a result of the constant crusades, crusading parties from Europe, all the times. I think you know certainly know a lot of those holy wars had a lot to do with the evolution of the Middle East into what it is now, and I think that's a good point in the sense that technologically speaking, when people hear dark ages, we're not going to go back to throwing spears and, you know, catapults and stuff. We're looking at an ideological dark age, where you can - I think it's absolutely possible today.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and that's, of course, one of the reasons why organizations like us, the New England Skeptical Society, exist, because I think at some point there has to just be a fundamental support for open-ended and free inquiry without any oppressive restrictions. That has a certain intrinsic, inherent value to human civilization, but it is constantly being nibbled away at. It really is, and it takes a certain amount of vigilance to continually promote it and to keep the forces of anti-intellectualism at bay. <br />
<br />
S: Unfortunately, that anti-intellectualism is embedded in, I think, a lot of our traditions here in America. Even the literary tradition. I mean, who is the villain in a lot of Nathaniel Hawthorne's work, one of the great American writers. It was always the intellectual. Roger Chillingworth from the ''Scarlet Letter''. Dr. Rappaccini, who created a daughter of pure poison. The scientist from ''{{w|The Birth-Mark}}'', who is trying to seek perfection and ends up killing the woman he loves. And Edgar Allen Poe, who snapped that science is a prying vulture.<br />
<br />
S: And Hollywood has picked up on those themes. And Hollywood really knows very few themes when it comes to science. They know about the mad scientist, the arrogant scientist, and that's about it. They don't really have any positive ...<br />
<br />
R: Don't forget the foolish skeptic.<br />
<br />
S: Right, the misguided, narrow-minded skeptic.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, there's never going to be an asteroid that will destroy the planet.<br />
<br />
P: Or skeptics in a mystical world, is also ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: ... a very common theme that comes out of Hollywood.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Which, of course, rigs the game against the skeptics from the get-go. If you're a skeptic in a paranormal world, ...<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... that's a lose-lose proposition for the skeptic. It's definitely possible to create short-term, and by short-term that could mean decades or even centuries, significant setbacks in the advancement of knowledge and science because of narrow political or social or religious ideology. I think in the long run, it all works itself out, but, again, we say "the long run," that could be after a 1000 years of dark ages, right? And you can only speculate where we would be now as a civilization if that did not occur.<br />
<br />
BT: Which is why, I think, Hypatia's story is not only important, I think it is very, very relevant, and now it's part of what attracted me to the story. This is the last time you had a very serious -- that (''unintelligible''), that title fight between rational thought &mdash; frankly between pluralistic freedom, and then you have between that blind superstition and blind faith. And we know who won, and then we've all been suffering for since then.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BT: So I think that's really the relevance of the story to me. No one would really choose willingly, knowing what they're talking about, really to choose to live in those 1000 years of medievalism. People didn't travel on average more than ten miles from where they lived. They were cut off from the world. They had no &mdash; there really was no education. People didn't bathe more than once a month, because they were afraid it &mdash; all the concepts of cleanliness and so forth and opening up one's mind, were shattered, were buried, were held under a thumb until you had it slowly eking out during later eras.<br />
<br />
J: Imagine being an intellectual living during that time and how painful it must have been being completly surrounded by people.<br />
<br />
BT: It must have been (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: Well, Brian, it's been great talking to you. What are you working on now? What's the next project that you're dealing with?<br />
<br />
BT: Well, right now I'm working on &mdash; I finished up another book about Japan and China. Interestingly enough, that second book that I have, it has a completely different themes, and it's not analogous to ''Remembering Hypatia'' in terms of its themes, but it does open with another very famous book burning in history, which was the one that was conducted under the reign of the first Emperor of China, of a unified China, I should say, Emperor {{w|Qin Shi Huang|Qin Shi Huang Di}}, who had not only executed scholars around China, but also, we know, burned these books that disagreed with a worldview that he wanted to put forth. Certainly I'm excited about it, and I post a lot of the news and things that I'm doing. I'm going to be talking more about ''Remembering Hypatia'' in the near future, anyway. At rememberhypatia.com I have all the list of events coming up I'm giving.<br />
<br />
S: And we'll have that link on our notes page. Well, Brian, thanks again for joining us. It was fascinating talking to you.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, thank you, Brian.<br />
<br />
BT: Likewise, and best of luck with everything. I like what you guys do.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks a lot.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks, Brian.<br />
<br />
S: Take care.<br />
<br />
BT: Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that was great to have Brian on. It's always a fascinating topic, the whole conflict between reason and fundamentalism. It's a very interesting discussion.<br />
<br />
P: It was good.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Look forward to his future works.<br />
<br />
R: Brian's a cool guy.<br />
<br />
S: He is. Cool guy.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:03:54)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: We have time for Science or Fiction. Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious, and I challenge my skeptical rogues to decide which one is the fake. There's no theme this week. Sometimes I have themes. So we have three items. You guys ready to hear them?<br />
<br />
P: Baited breath.<br />
<br />
R: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: I am, at least.<br />
<br />
S: Item number one. Again, two are real; one is fake. Item number one: Toyota has unveiled a prototype ''green car'' they claim can achieve 175 miles per gallon. Item number two: oil drillers have dug up a piece of a dinosaur fossil from 2615 meters below the ocean floor of the North Sea. And item number three: some astronomers believe that evidence is mounting for the existence of a companion star to our own son.<br />
<br />
P: Companion star!<br />
<br />
S: Evan, why don't you start us off?<br />
<br />
E: Well, they all sound wrong. Something about that ocean floor doesn't sound right. I don't think we can go down that far below the ocean floor. 26 &mdash; it was 2615 meters?<br />
<br />
S: That's correct.<br />
<br />
E: Can we go that far down the ocean floor? I wasn't aware that we could go. Maybe we can. Hm. The green car sounds plausible. Companion star &mdash; that might also be wrong. But, I'll stick with number two. Because that's what my gut is telling me. I just think that's too deep. I don't think we can go down that far.<br />
<br />
S: Alrighty. Perry?<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, well it depends what ocean floor you're talking about. If it's 5 feet off the beach we can do it. It was pretty vague. Hundred and seventy-five miles to a gallon &mdash; that's impressive. Japanese are good at that sort of thing, however. A sister star to our sun. I'm going to say number &mdash; I'm going to say that the first one is fiction. I think 175 to 1 gallon of gasoline &mdash; is that what you are talking about? A gallon of gasoline?<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
P: Is a bit much. So I'll say &mdash; and it's a car, not a model car, yeah. That's too much.<br />
<br />
S: It's a car. It's a car.<br />
<br />
P: Okay. So, yeah, number one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Alrighty. Okay, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
R: Yes. Okay. The hybrid things seems really &mdash; it seems doable. I mean, it's a crazy amount, but I think that might be true. And the second one, I'm kind of with Evan on this. That seems really, really deep. I think I'm going to go with that one, because I think I heard &mdash; I think I read a news story about the companion star thing, too. I think that's true. So I'm going to go with number two being fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. So far, everyone is buying that the companion star is true, and we have two &mdash; Evan and Rebecca think that the fossil under the North Sea is fake, and Perry does not believe that the Japanese have a prototype car for 175 miles per gallon. So, let's see. Well let's start with number three, since you all agreed that number three is true. Wouldn't you think that you could see the sun, a companion star, in our own system?<br />
<br />
R: Things can be far away.<br />
<br />
S: But if it's in our own system, how could it be too far away? Even a small star in our own system would be the brightest star in our sky, unless it were dark. The only possibility is that the companion star is like a brown dwarf or something that does not give off significant light. That one is true.<br />
<br />
R: Ah, ha!<br />
<br />
S: The evidence that has been "mounting" is the discovery of the alleged 10th planet, right? So {{w|90377 Sedna|Sedna}}, for example &mdash; these are planets, depending on whether or not you want to define them as such. They are large, larger than Pluto, spherical, planetoids surrounding the Sun. It's still debatable whether or not they should be actually counted as planets, because they're so far out. But, again, they are like planets, and they're bigger than Pluto. That their orbits cannot be really fully accounted for by our current model of the solar system. Now there's a couple of ways to explain their orbits. One is that at some time, billions of years in the past, earlier on in the solar system, we were a lot closer to some of our neighboring stars, and that their gravitational influence put them in the orbits that they're currently in. But there's another school of thought that says the orbits can be explained without invoking changes in the past. In fact, if we have a dark companion star to our own sun, that could explain the oddities in the orbits of these newly discovered planets out in the edges of our solar system. So this is still not proved. This is still a working theory, but, again, there are those who think that we are moving more in the direction of inferring the existence of this object.<br />
<br />
R: Steve, what's this going to do for my horoscope for the weekend? I've just kind of (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: As well as Sedna and Xena, these other bodies are wreaking havoc in the exact science of astrology, becuase now you have to account for their influence on all the other planets. It's just mind boggling.<br />
<br />
R: I'm a little concerned.<br />
<br />
S: It's very concerning. Now, let's see. Which one should I go to? We had &mdash; so Perry thought that number one was fake, and the other two thought that number two was fake. Well let's go to number two: oil drillers have dug up a piece of a dinosaur fossil from 2615 meters below the ocean floor of the North Sea. That one is, in fact, true.<br />
<br />
R: Ah, ha!<br />
<br />
S: That is science.<br />
<br />
E: Wow! Impressive.<br />
<br />
S: The fact that it's the North Sea, which means that Perry is right this week. Congratulations, Perry.<br />
<br />
P: yes.<br />
<br />
S: We'll get to the green car in a minute. So this is the deepest dinosaur fossil ever found. Paleontologist {{w|Jørn Hurum}} was the first to identify that the bone fragment that was brought up by the drill was actually a fossil and, in fact, a dinosaur fossil. This was dug up in 1997, and then a few years later in 2003 he acquired the fossil, and he was able to identify it recently as the leg bone of a plateosaurus, a Triassic carnivore. Normally, drills pick up little bits of fossils, mostly seashells and things like that all the time. This was the largest single fossil fragment ever brought up. During this period of time, about 200 million years ago, the North Sea was a land bridge connecting Greenland and Norway. So this was dry land at the time that this fossil dates from. So a very fortuitous and interesting find, and Hurum gets credit for identifying the species from the tiny fragment, but he says he's very, very confident in the identification. Yes number one: this one is fiction. so Toyota unveiled a prototype green car they claimed can achieve 175 miles per hour (sic). Not totally outrageous, but if you have been following along with the hybrid technology, this is about twice what they're getting now.<br />
<br />
P: 175 miles per gallon, Steve, you said per hour.<br />
<br />
S: 175 miles per gallon, thank you. Now the hybrid technology, which is really interesting, and this is someting that we maybe want to talk about in more detail in the future, just all of the facts surrounding both hybrid technology as well as hydrogen fuel-cell technology. The hybrid cars that are on the roads now are getting somewhere between 30 and 60 miles per gallon. Although the EPA just changed their rules by which cars' miles per gallon get rated to make them more reflective of actual driving conditions, as opposed to the absolutely optimal conditions that have been used in the past to get fairly unrealistic miles per gallon numbers. So those numbers are all being downgraded. But even still, the best hybrid cars are getting in the 50s. What is being unveiled, and in prototypes, and will probably be hitting the streets a year from now, is the next step in hybrid technology, which are the plug-in hybrids. These are hybrids that you can actually plug into any 120 volt outlet and charge it up.<br />
<br />
R: But wasn't that the first stage of electric cars and everything? Didn't we already do that?<br />
<br />
S: If you go back to the 80s and even the 90s when GM and others are working on pure electric cars, those cars had to be charged up. The problem was, and they never became production, because our battery technology just is not up to the task of giving pure electric cars the range and power that the average driver would demand. So they never really took off. Hybrids were &mdash; of course you have a gasoline engine, which can give you the range and power, but when you don't need that much power, the electric engine can drive the car. So you get the efficiency of electric engine, plus there's a lot of other technologies like the regenerative braking that can come into play when you have electric motor, but you get the range and power component from the gasoline engine. So it really was a very good solution, and it will be the stopgap measure that gets us to, probably, an eventual hydrogen fuel-cell fleet. But now the plug-in is the next step, because now you can plug in the electric batteries in the electric component of the hybrid, something which has not been done so far. The reason why this is a big step forward is because if you are charging a car battery overnight, on off-peak electricity, that's the cheapest mile that you'll get. You get, in terms of cents per mile, it's cheaper than gasoline. It's cheaper than running your hybrid otherwise. So that's the most fuel-efficient, if you will, thing that we have so far. These cars are expected to get up to about 100 miles per gallon, although I think that that's an optimistic estimate. It's probably less than that in real driving conditions. So right now, a hundred miles per gallon is the benchmark. There is talk with lighter, with carbon fibers and lighter frames and better hybrid technology, of getting this up to maybe 150 miles per gallon over the next 10 years or so. 175 is out of the range that's being discussed right now.<br />
<br />
E: Well, just replace miles with kilometers and we're a lot closer.<br />
<br />
S: That's true. If I were talking about kilometers per hour (sic) that would've been closer. So, again, not out-of-control, but it is beyond the projection of any hybrid technology today.<br />
<br />
S: So that is all the time we have for this week. Guys, thanks again for joining me. It was fun as always.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, doctor.<br />
<br />
S: Until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. <br />
<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_40&diff=9869SGU Episode 402015-04-30T16:26:07Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
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|episodeDate = April 26<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
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|rebecca = y<br />
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|guest1 = BT: Brian Trent<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast04-26-06.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,52.0.html<br />
|}}<br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Sonoma Bigfoot Revealed <small>(4:45)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Channeling John Lennon <small>(16:33)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(19:26)</small>==<br />
=== Hurricanes <small>(20:49)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Birthday Problem <small>(22:17)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Evolution Books <small>(23:13)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Bananas and Logical Fallacies <small>(25:19)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Interview with Brian Trent <small>(35:29)</small> ==<br />
Author of ''Remembering Hypatia''<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:03:54)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9867Template:SGU episode list2015-04-28T05:37:20Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #39 as done; transcribing #40.</p>
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|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9866Template:SGU episode list2015-04-28T05:36:25Z<p>Jim Gibson: Undo revision 9865 by Jim Gibson (talk)</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
<br />
Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
<br />
{|<br />
!Key:<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9865Template:SGU episode list2015-04-28T05:35:09Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #39 as done; transcribing #40.</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
<br />
Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
<br />
{|<br />
!Key:<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 511]], Apr 25 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_39&diff=9858SGU Episode 392015-04-27T20:46:23Z<p>Jim Gibson: Finish transcription.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 39<br />
|episodeDate = April 19<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Icecaps.gif<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = MS: Marilyn Schlitz<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast04-19-06.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. This is your host, Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. Today is Wednesday, April 19, 2006. Joining me this evening are the skeptical rogues Perry DeAngelis, ...<br />
<br />
P: Welcome to the 39th episode, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hey, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... Jay Novella, ...<br />
<br />
J: Good evening, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Evan Berstein.<br />
<br />
E: Hello everyone on Earth.<br />
<br />
S: How are you guys doing this evening?<br />
<br />
R: I don't think it's everyone on Earth.<br />
<br />
J: Pretty good. How are you doing, Steve?<br />
<br />
E: Quite well. Yeah it is.<br />
<br />
S: We have a good show tonight. Later on in the show we have an interview with Marilyn Schlitz, who is an ESP researcher. We're going to have a little back and forth on the reality of ESP and other things. We have more science news, your emails, and, of course, Science or Fiction. And, as always, thanks for listening to the show. Our rankings are shooting up on the podcast listing sites. I just checked iTunes. We're up to 49 this week. Up from 69 last week.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: Excellent.<br />
<br />
P: Very good. Very good.<br />
<br />
S: Of science podcasts.<br />
<br />
J: Thank you, listeners.<br />
<br />
S: Keep listening; keep voting for us and rating us on those sites. It helps get the word out.<br />
<br />
P: Always trying to come up with ideas to keep our show popular.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Thanks for all the good feedback. We're getting a lot of great feedback off our site. Please use our contact page, and we do have a form to submit your questions and suggestions and feedback. If you want us to read your email on the show, please give us your name and city so that we can identify you.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, what's that new domain name?<br />
<br />
S: And Jay, our webmaster, is reminding me to tell you what our new domain is. It is [theskepticsguide.org]. <br />
<br />
P: Excellent.<br />
<br />
R: And Steve, is there a place where people can send like chocolate and jewelry and other presents for me?<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, the Skepchick, had made a specific request to ask our listeners to send her chocolate and other nice, feminine gifts.<br />
<br />
J: Chocolate jewelry, yes.<br />
<br />
R: (''unintelligible'') Thank you.<br />
<br />
P: No meat?<br />
<br />
E: The rest of us will take cash.<br />
<br />
S: No meat.<br />
<br />
R: No meat.<br />
<br />
J: I do have a good birthday wish to one of our biggest fans, probably our biggest fan on the show: Michael Ortacelli turns 33 today.<br />
<br />
S: Michael, happy birthday.<br />
<br />
P: Hello, Michael.<br />
<br />
R: Can I say happy birthday to Sid Rodriguez?<br />
<br />
J: Go right ahead.<br />
<br />
R: UK Skeptics. He's a big fan of ours, too.<br />
<br />
S: Excellent.<br />
<br />
P: Sid's a fine, fine individual.<br />
<br />
R: He's an awesome individual.<br />
<br />
J: I love him.<br />
<br />
E: How old is he?<br />
<br />
R: I don't even know.<br />
<br />
J: Sid's twenty-seven.<br />
<br />
R: There you go. He's probably about that.<br />
<br />
S: Any other listeners out there whose birthday it is: happy birthday. By the way, since we're talking about birthdays and skeptics, do any of you guys know how many people do you have to have in a room before there's a 50-50 chance that two of them will have the same birthday?<br />
<br />
J: It was 200 or something.<br />
<br />
R: Isn't it &mdash; no, it was like 20 or 30.<br />
<br />
E: Thirty.<br />
<br />
J: Bob told me.<br />
<br />
B: Twenty-three.<br />
<br />
S: It's twenty. Rebecca was right.<br />
<br />
R: Ah, ah!<br />
<br />
J: Bob will be pissed. He told me.<br />
<br />
E: Rebecca cheated.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Sad Monkeys <small>(3:10)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well, let's start off. Let's get to some news. Let's talk start off talking about sad monkeys.<br />
<br />
E: Ah.<br />
<br />
J: They're sad.<br />
<br />
S: And Rebecca, you blogged about this. Why don't you tell us about the sad mankeys.<br />
<br />
R: I did. Researchers have been studying depression in primates, and it resulted in what's obviously like the most depressing headline ever, which is "Scientist Happy About Sad Monkeys." Do you need any more evidence that scientists are just ...<br />
<br />
S: Evil people.<br />
<br />
R: ... evil.<br />
<br />
E: They're just cold hearted.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. It's really not doing much for our marketing. Yeah, it is interesting, because it's offering us some key insights into how we can help treat depression in humans, because at this point it's all pretty much up in the air how to tackle that particular disease.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. Obviously, we have a lot of models by which we can study depression, and we have a lot of ideas about what's going on. It's too little serotonin, for example, but what we don't have for depression is a good animal model, and the reason why a good animal model is important is because it enables you to do rapid research on medications and other ways of figuring out how depression works. If you don't have an animal model, then you're pretty much stuck doing research on people, which is a lot harder and takes a lot longer. So animal models really speed along clinical research. So this is actually a pretty big breakthrough for depression research.<br />
<br />
R: It does confuse me, though, because I've noticed my cats get sad if I don't pet them enough. Haven't we seen other animals get sad befoe?<br />
<br />
S: In order to have an animal model, you need to have an operational definition. You need to have something that you can objectively measure so that you can use it in an experimental protocol. Your subjective sense that your cat is sad is not something that you could fast-track in a research protocol.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, no. I know for a fact.<br />
<br />
J: I'm telling you the best way to solve this is to get the pet psychic in.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
J: She could tell us exactly. Did you know that on one of her shows some guy had an alligator as a pet, and she goes &mdash; she reads its mind and she goes "He's hungry."<br />
<br />
E: Oh, wow! An animal was hungry.<br />
<br />
J: What a genius.<br />
<br />
R: Why does she never know their God-damn names? Seriously. What is the one thing that a dog hears over and over again. You know, that's the one thing the dog should know.<br />
<br />
J: You know, if she said once "Okay, your dog, Frankie, he came up to me and told me stop kicking him, stop getting up early and drinking vodka." If she ever came out with something specific like that, like any of these psychics, I would believe it.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Like Dr. Dolittle.<br />
<br />
R: I actually &mdash; I know a really great joke about that, but I don't think I can tell it on here. But I'll just say it ends with "The sheep's a God-damned liar."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard it.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
=== Gospel of Judas <small>(6:04)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well let's move on to the Gospel of Judas. You guys must've heard about this in the past week.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, yes, yes.<br />
<br />
S: When I first heard about this I was like "Oh, come on! Another ancient manuscript?" But it turns out this is probably legitimate. This is a 1700-year-old manuscript, which represents one of the earliest Christian documents that is, basically, being labeled as the Gospel of Judas, and it tells a rather different version of events. Basically, the bottom line is it that in this version of events, Judas was Jesus's close friend, and Jesus asked Judas to betray him to the {{w|Sanhedrin}} as part of the master plan, because that was God's will. So Judas didn't actually betray Jesus, he was just doing his bidding, and even though he knew it was going to make him the scapegoat, the bad guy, and he took the hit for the team, took the hit for Jesus.<br />
<br />
J: Wasn't that one ...<br />
<br />
R: I saw the exact same thing in a movie someplace.<br />
<br />
J: That was the Last Temptation of Christ. That was a Scorsese film.<br />
<br />
E: Was it?<br />
<br />
R: Ah.<br />
<br />
S: I don't remember that from that movie. The last temptation was the fact that Satan tempted Jesus one last time while he was on the cross, with basically having a normal life, and he turned down that temptation.<br />
<br />
J: Well that was the ultimate scene in the movie, but at one point Harvey Keitel, who played Judas in the movie, it was that plot.<br />
<br />
S: Is that right?<br />
<br />
J: Jesus asked him to go turn him in, and he didn't want to.<br />
<br />
S: What's interesting about this is, just from a historical point of view, this is obviously an incredible piece of historical documentation, and it really shows that in the early church, there were all kinds of different interpretations of what had happened and the teachings of Jesus, and this document was produced by, if this was the gospel of some cult of Jesus that was around at that time, that at the time, they were dismissed as heretics, and the incipient church at that time basically said, "All right, these four Gospels, these are legitimate, and all the other ones are heresies." So they suppressed all the other ones, and this was the one of the ones that they suppressed. What it really indicates is that Christianity, what we receive 2000 years later as Christianity is really just a small subset of all the traditions that were being bandied about at the time.<br />
<br />
E: It's probably true of all religions today.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Right. It's the nature of belief systems is that they tend to splinter over time, and that basically is what was happening early on. So, anyway, very interesting piece of historical evidence, and it's very fascinating to watch how people react to it: utter denial, complete dismissal by believers or others are saying "Who cares? The Gospels are not about historical accuracy, anyway. It's just a morality tale, and this is not the moral that we want." So they dismiss it on that basis. So, very interesting.<br />
<br />
J: People were getting very emotional: "That can't be the truth." I just heard things on the news and read things about it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: People just get very upset about having their belief system in any way tested.<br />
<br />
P: I'm shocked!<br />
<br />
R: It's like when you are following a TV show, and then all of a sudden the bad guy turns out to really be good ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: ... and then they kill off the good guy. You know, people get pissed.<br />
<br />
P: It's not good. It's not good.<br />
<br />
S: I think it's cool when that happens.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah?<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve. Let me ask you a few questions.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: Did they transcribe the whole thing? Was it interpreted into English or other languages, the entire document?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the document is very piecemeal, like half of it's missing, so I don't know what state it's in terms of the translation or restoration.<br />
<br />
J: Did they also confirm its' age and authenticity?<br />
<br />
S: Apparently it age has been confirmed by ink analysis, by carbon dating, and historical analysis, and then they converge on 1700 years ago, on 380 AD.<br />
<br />
J: Okay, so ...<br />
<br />
S: That's the word so far. I haven't heard any scientist saying this is bogus.<br />
<br />
J: Let's say that they really do come through with the "yes, indeed, this is the timeframe in which it was written and everything. It just all seems to make sense. This is probably a legitimate document."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: How could the church possibly not incorporate it in one way or the other.<br />
<br />
S: Well, but the thing is this is nothing new. There are lots of extra biblical early Christian writings, do you know what I mean? This is not the first time there's been a historical document about the early church that wasn't in the Bible. There are lots of them: the Gnostic Gospels, for example. So the church is already dealing with this. This is just one more book for them to deal with. The bottom line is, early on the word came down: these are official. <br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: This is the canon of the church.<br />
<br />
P: The process for adding this gospel into the biblical canon would be titanic.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: It would be almost impossible, unless the Pope stood up and said it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, perhaps.<br />
<br />
R: I think they're going to revert to the ancient art of sticking the fingers in the ears and going "La, la, la, la, la."<br />
<br />
J: "I can't hear you. La, la, la, la, la."<br />
<br />
S: Don't get mad at facts. That's usually a bad move. <br />
<br />
J: I think it's a very cool thing to happen. It's actually exciting, and I'm very curious to see what takes place over the next few years with it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. It will be fascinating to watch.<br />
<br />
P: I have a friend in the seminary. I'll get the inside dope on what they're talking about.<br />
<br />
S: On what the Catholic Church is talking about?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah, he's unbiased.<br />
<br />
P: Behind, behind &mdash; like I said, I'm going to get what ...<br />
<br />
S: You'll tell us the church dogma. <br />
<br />
P: Behind holy doors.<br />
<br />
J: Perry, what did you just say? You have a friend?<br />
<br />
P: In the seminary, mind you. Not just a run-of-the-mill friend.<br />
<br />
J: Never mind that! Perry, you've got a friend!<br />
<br />
P: Not just some skeptic.<br />
<br />
J: We love that particular friend. He's a good guy.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, he's a good guy. Johnny.<br />
<br />
E: He's a good man, good man.<br />
<br />
P: He's all right. I'd also like to point out that I always thought Judas was a good guy, long before this gospel came out.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, so you are vindicated, once again. Your postdiction came true. All right.<br />
<br />
=== More on the Polar Ice Caps <small>(11:48)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Let's talk about the polar ice caps. Now last week, Perry and I had our little discussion about global warming, and Jay, you brought up that you had heard the 20% figure, that 20% of the polar ice caps have disappeared over the last decades or so.<br />
<br />
J: Yup.<br />
<br />
E: We're going to lose 20% of our polar ice caps.<br />
<br />
S: Right, so I looked into that much more closely in the intervening week to see what the actual facts of that, and it is as murky as the whole issue of global warming.<br />
<br />
P: I'm shocked.<br />
<br />
S: In fact, it's interesting. It's like a little microcosm of global warming. It's the same people with the same basic arguments, but, again, the facts have been evolving over the last 20 or 30 years, and they are moving consistently in the direction that we are in a period of shrinking of the polar ice caps. The only figure I could find quoted anywhere was 20%, but it was on an environmentalist website.<br />
<br />
P: How interesting.<br />
<br />
S: So, it was not on a dry, scientific source.<br />
<br />
E: Clarification, Steve. Of man-made global warming, right?<br />
<br />
S: I'm not talking about the bigger issue of global warming, just what are the polar ice caps doing. Are they getting bigger? Are they getting smaller? By what, how much, how fast? Just that very ...<br />
<br />
E: Not what's causing it.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Not what's causing it. Just looking at the smaller subset question of what's happening to the polar ice caps. Of course, then you can infer from that &mdash; is this due to global warming and is this global warming man-made or natural? That's a separate question. However, NASA, I think, had the most objective information &mdash; the NASA website, and we have all of these links on our notes page. So there was a lot of controversy over the last 20 years about are the polar ice caps shrinking. It seemed as if the Arctic was shrinking, but the Antarctic might not have been, but there was other data that suggests that the land-trapped ice on Greenland and Antarctica has been melting, and sea levels, in fact, have been rising by at least several inches because of water that's being dumped from those landmasses into the oceans. But there was wiggle room for disagreement if you didn't agree with that. But in the last five years NASA has had satellites dedicated to measuring polar ice, and they have confirmed that the poles are, in fact, shrinking, that the amount of ice trapped in the poles is, in fact, decreasing over time. At least on their website, on their publications, they weren't signing off on any particular figure yet, and they're still saying we need to follow this out for a few more years to really know what the statistical trend is. So I also noticed that in March of '09 Europe is going to be launching {{w|CryoSat-2}}, which is a satellite dedicated to measuring polar ice, so this debate is probably going to need 5 to 10 years before there's a definitive consensus, but it certainly appears to be moving in the direction that the polar ice caps are shrinking at this point in time.<br />
<br />
J: Well, Steve, I have another interesting piece of information. Anybody that lives in Alaska, and of course you know I know someone that was born there, the word on the street is that they all know that there's global warming, because they've seen an enormous amount of glacier ice just gone, like it's just completly gone.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Again, I don't think there's any question at this point in time that that's happening. The question is is this just a natural oscillation, or is this a man-made artificial trend. That's where the debate is, I think at this point. Although, if you read conservative sites for five years ago, they were still denying that there was actually shrinkage of the poles, but the NASA data over last five years I think has put that to rest.<br />
<br />
P: You just said that it's still evolving, and that we would need 5 to 10 years before ...<br />
<br />
S: That's more to say like how much and what the long-term trend is, but they're saying now that the poles are definitely shrinking. That's the word right as of now.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve, worst-case scenario, what's going to happen, right? Let's say it's happening, and in another 50 years it's going to keep doing it's steady decline.<br />
<br />
S: Well, I could tell you that the most dire predictions that are being made, and the NASA site wasn't doing this, but the environmentalist sites were, that if you take the data for the last 20 years, and you extrapolate that out, they're saying that the polar ice caps will be gone within the next hundred years.<br />
<br />
P: (''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: That's if the trend continues without any change. There's no legitimate ...<br />
<br />
E: What's the likelihood of that?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we don't know. We don't know.<br />
<br />
P: No more polar ice in 100 years. The north pole.<br />
<br />
S: Both poles.<br />
<br />
P: Both poles.<br />
<br />
S: If current trends continue.<br />
<br />
P: Antartica gone in 100 years.<br />
<br />
S: If the current trends continue without change.<br />
<br />
P: That's crazy talk.<br />
<br />
P: No, Perry, that's math. Perry, that's just math.<br />
<br />
P: That's crazy talk.<br />
<br />
S: If you accept the figures for how much the poles have shrunk, and that &mdash; and this is the big if &mdash; if those trends continue without any change, that's just mathematical extrapolation.<br />
<br />
P: I will lose weight and become a vegetarian so that I can live 100 more years, just to sit around and laugh at the fools that predicted no Antartica in 100 years.<br />
<br />
E: Is the scientific community, do they feel that at any time in, say, recent history of past 5000 or 10,000 years, have we ever lost our polar ice caps at any point?<br />
<br />
S: Completely? I don't think so.<br />
<br />
E: Not completely, but even had a significant reduction?<br />
<br />
S: Not in thousands of year. Millions of years, sure.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, millions.<br />
<br />
S: There have been warm periods where we didn't have polar caps.<br />
<br />
P: A hundred years!<br />
<br />
S: The North Pole was temperate at one point in time.<br />
<br />
J: But, Steve, Al Gore will have all of us believe, and I'm not joking about this. I caught some video that he made on that show that broadcasts little TV episodes that people make on their own, and Al Gore made some environmental thing. And he said that all of these storms that we're seeing, Katrina and all that stuff, are due to global warming.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: I don't know if that's true, to be honest with you, number one. Number two, do you think there's a possibility that we could be having some severe weather because of this over the next 20, 30, 50 years.<br />
<br />
P: Well, obviously an increase in ocean temperature is going to cause an increase in hurricanes.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: I believe that. That's obvious.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I mean it's hard to say for any particular storm if it were "caused" by global warming ...<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... or contributed to by it, but just statistically we're more likely to have more storms if ocean temperatures are warmer.<br />
<br />
P: Right, and that's a far cry from no Antarctica, thank you.<br />
<br />
S: It is. It is. I think what we'll learn over the next five or 10 years from CryoSat and the NASA satellites is: what is the trend? Is it continuing? Is it accelerating? Is it slowing? And then we'll be able to extrapolate more confidently into the future over the next five or 10 years. All we can say now is that, yes, the polls are smaller now than they were 20 years ago, but we don't know how we should be extrapolating that into the future. We'll certainly keep you updated. It certainly seems like not a week goes by where there isn't another story about polar bears being stranded and things like that.<br />
<br />
R: Ah.<br />
<br />
E: Poor polar bears.<br />
<br />
S: Poor polar bears and baby walruses crying.<br />
<br />
R: Now you really brought it home for me.<br />
<br />
E: Put them out of there misery.<br />
<br />
R: I really didn't give a crap before.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca and I are starting the Adopt-a-Penguin program.<br />
<br />
R: There already is an Adopt-a-Penguin program, and I have one. His name Super-dude.<br />
<br />
E: I'm going to adopt Opus. I'm adopting Opus from Bloom County. That's the best penguin in history.<br />
<br />
P: You could be his mother.<br />
<br />
=== Mercury Amalgam <small>(19:26)</small>=== <br />
<br />
S: All right. Two more quick news items before we go on to email. I noticed in reviewing the science news items from the last week that there were ''two'' studies that address a long &mdash; one is long-standing, one is fairly recent &mdash; alternative medicine type of claims. There was a study looking at mercury amalgam. For a number of years now, there have been those who claim that mercury amalgam fillings in our teeth, the mercury is leaching out into our bloodstreams and causing all kinds of disease, causing pediatric mental retardation, chronic immune deficiencies, etc.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, boy.<br />
<br />
S: Well, there hasn't been any evidence to support those claims, but ...<br />
<br />
E: Who needs evidence?<br />
<br />
S: But there's a cottage industry of people who will remove your feelings for you and give you all other kinds of treatments for it.<br />
<br />
J: If they remove my fillings, how am I ever going to pickup those radio broadcasts?<br />
<br />
S: That's right. You have to deal with that.<br />
<br />
R: You'll never know when the mother ship is here.<br />
<br />
S: There was a recent study published looking at mercury amalgam, a prospective epidemiological study, which showed there is no association with any pediatric problems and mercury amalgam. So a definitively negative study, which is very reassuring about the safety of mercury amalgam.<br />
<br />
J: Yay.<br />
<br />
E: Steve, are these the same people who believe that the mercury contained in inoculations for children and so forth are causing them to have all sorts of problems.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, there is tremendous overlap in those communities.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, there's no shock there.<br />
<br />
S: And there are just all-purpose anti-mercury groups ...<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... that think mercury from everywhere is causing all kinds of problems. And, you know, mercury is an actual toxin. It's all a matter of dose and exposure.<br />
<br />
J: How about the whole tunafish, the canned fish mercury.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, go get mercury from fish. There's no question. Again, it's a matter of how much and ...<br />
<br />
R: Especially here in Massachusetts. For a while they actually said "Don't eat the fish from the lakes and streams" because it's so bad.<br />
<br />
S: Right, and that's legitimate. The goal of the FDA and other agencies is to minimize cumulative overall human exposure to mercury, because, again, it is a toxin.<br />
<br />
E: Well it's one thing to not eat the fish locally, but it's another thing to not inoculate your children for fear of mercury poisoning.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
E: That's a big problem.<br />
<br />
R: That's the thing, though. How can people look at a warning like that and see that the government is doing their job to try to protect us from the harmful effects of mercury, but for some reason ignoring the problems of mercury in vaccines and whatever. There's no reason why we would cover that up.<br />
<br />
S: It's a big conspiracy.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, it's ridiculous.<br />
<br />
S: I wrote a fairly long definitive article about just that issue &mdash; thimerosal mercury in vaccines &mdash; and maybe we could talk about it at length at another podcast. We don't really have time to dig into it deep on this show.<br />
<br />
P: One quick note. I just saw on the news tonight a report by a government health official that there's been an increased incidence of disease in college-age students, because they're mixing together for the first time, it's spring break and they're together, and they're getting sick, because in the 80s was when it began to get in vogue to not vaccinate your children, and so now there are many college-age students who never received their vaccinations, and a sharp increase in the level of illness amongst these kids.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well that's the reason why you have to vaccinate your kids.<br />
<br />
P: It's, you know.<br />
<br />
S: It's actually not a problem in this country, because you have to get vaccinated to go into the public school system.<br />
<br />
E: To go to school, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: But it's more of a problem in the UK, where it's totally voluntary. Every time there's a scare, they get a huge dip in their vaccination. Let's cover that in more depth in another show.<br />
<br />
=== Spinal Stem Cells <small>(23:02)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The next study I saw was &mdash; this one cuts close to home for me &mdash; there's a clinic in China, and, again, another Dr. Huang, I believe is his name, who was claiming that he can implant the specific kind of olfactory stem cells into injured spinal cords and cause miraculous regeneration, and he's claiming a tremendous success rate that he has cured hundreds of people of spinal cord disorders and ALS and MS. Now unfortunately he's not doing any actual research into the safety and effectiveness of his intervention.<br />
<br />
R: I for one am shocked.<br />
<br />
S: He says "I'm too busy." He says what every quack says "I'm too busy healing people to do research." And he hasn't really even told anybody outside of clinic what he's actually injecting into people.<br />
<br />
E: Oh my God!<br />
<br />
S: So a group of neurosurgeons, reasonably concerned over these claims, and of course if they are legitimate, we would want to know about it, and if they're not legitimate, we'd want to know about it. So they reviewed a number of his cases, including the cocktail that he is injecting into them, and, basically, what they found is, first of all, no benefit. None of the people that they reviewed actually benefited from this intervention.<br />
<br />
R: I for one am shocked!<br />
<br />
S: It gets better. Secondly, despite his claims of no side effects from this procedure, there was an 80% side effect rate, including meningitis in many of these patients.<br />
<br />
R: I for &mdash; never mind.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
P: Menengitis &mdash; that's bad, right, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: That's bad. Yeah, that's bad.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: So the problem is, basically, this clinic in China was established to lure wealthy Westerners, with miraculous claims, to fly to China, to spend &mdash; give this guy $20,000 cash, ...<br />
<br />
P: Jeez!<br />
<br />
S: ... so that he can inject snake oil into your spine and you could die over there.<br />
<br />
E: This is psychic surgery all over again, wrapped in a different wrapper.<br />
<br />
R: this is so much worse!<br />
<br />
J: Steve, do you think it's too late for me to get my money back?<br />
<br />
P: Steve, did they analyze the cocktail?<br />
<br />
S: I think they were able to analyze it to some degree, and it does have ...<br />
<br />
J: Turns out it was a cosmopolitan.<br />
<br />
S: ... it has the nasally drive like olfactory stem cells in there, but not what he was claiming, and they may not be viable.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: It's bad all around.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The guy is basically a ...<br />
<br />
J: So where was he injecting this into people.<br />
<br />
S: Into people's spines.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: He's making money on the sexy appeal of stem cells, you know.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: He's riding that wave.<br />
<br />
R: This is one of those cases to remember the next time somebody says "Well, what's it hurt, really?"<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, "What's it hurt?" I personally know a patient with ALS who died in China because of this guy's false promises.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, boy.<br />
<br />
E: Well, he would have died here, but ...<br />
<br />
S: Not as quick and as poor, right?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, that's true.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: I've seen &mdash; the intangible here is the harm of false hope, and then the bitter disappointment when the false hope crashes.<br />
<br />
E: That's very true. Very true.<br />
<br />
S: It is harsh. Maybe you can give people one to two years of some quality-of-life, or people who have a spinal cord injury, they may be wheelchair-bound, but they can still go on to have a life, and you can take that from them. The argument that it can't hurt to try these sort of desperate measures is not correct.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(26:25)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: All right; let's move on to e-mails. Again, we have more e-mails than we can talk about on the show. We are going to be upgrading our website eventually to be able to post all of the e-mails that we get for feedback on the website, but in the meantime we'll be reading a select few each week. We have a few for this week.<br />
<br />
=== Skeptical Tools <small>(26:42)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: E-mail number one begins:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Greetings. I love the show. This show is a fantastic resource for someone like me. While I have the skeptical mindset, I do not have the tools to deconstruct some of the paranormal things that I hear about. This show helps me give me the ability to take bunk theories apart. I'd like to suggest a segment to your show. I would love it if you took time out of every show to describe a tool in the skeptic toolbox. You could talk about a part of the scientific method, a logical fallacy with examples or point of view that will help the listener become a better skeptic.<br/><br />
Keep up the great work,<br/><br />
Cecil.</blockquote><br />
Thank you, Cecil. We do try to sort of roll into our discussions some skeptical tools, like we will specifically mention logical fallacies or explain things like empiricism and naturalism, etc. So we do try to fill up that skeptical toolbox every chance that we get, in the context of ...<br />
<br />
J: Cecil, Cecil, the truth is, we just copied that stuff from another website; we don't even know what those logical fallacies are.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
E: Logical what?<br />
<br />
S: We do have our favorite [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logical-fallacies logical fallacies] on the website, for example. And we do talk about {{w|Occam's Razor}} and other principles of skepticism. But your suggestion is interesting, and the bottom line is: we'll think about it. I mean, we are thinking about adding new segments to the show and do send us your suggestions and that may be a new segment that we'll be bringing on soon. We'll think about it.<br />
<br />
J: Well, Steve, if you remember, we actually &mdash; you know, off &mdash; not on a show, but off-air, we did discuss taking one of those logical fallacies a show and just talk about it; explain it; give examples.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. <br />
<br />
J: I think that'd be an interesting thing to do.<br />
<br />
R: Think it's a good idea.<br />
<br />
S: So keep an eye out for that in the future.<br />
<br />
=== Evaluating Scientific Claims <small>(28:23)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Email number two is actually &mdash; there's a very long preamble, which basically, again, is more praise for our podcast. And then at the end, she asks a question. She says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Finally my question. In my line of work, I am constantly confronted with scientists who essentially prostitute themselves and the truth out to the highest bidder. I would really enjoy hearing your perspectives on that. Superficially, they often appear to be true to the scientific method and are even considering the same raw data as other studies. However, their use of that data and the statistical analysis performed can, of course, dramatically impact the final outcome, the answer. Given this, how does the average person really evaluate the legitimacy of medical claims, environmental issues, health studies, constituents in food, pesticides, etc. One could make the effort to determine who the study was funded by, but how?<br/><br />
Sincerely,<br/><br />
Kim<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
So, Kim, thank you for your e-mail. Again, the full e-mail will be on our notes page; I just read the question part of her e-mail. And that is an excellent question. How does the lay person assess scientific claims when different experts are making opposite claims? We just wrestled with this with the global warming and the polar icecap issue. You have different scientists making different claims; who's right, you know? There is no hard and fast or easy answer to that question. It does depend upon the subject matter itself. I think there are some rules of thumb, however. One is: trust a consensus over an individual scientist's opinion. Individual scientists are quirky individuals. They are people; they have their biases. They may have lots of reasons why they may be more compelled by something. It may be greedy, it may be financial, or it may just be that they desire a more successful career for themselves. Or they may just be wrong. They may just have a wrong idea in their head. But those kind of things tend to get worked out when an idea is discussed amongst the community of scientists. The community is not going to have, generally, the same biases, the same financial concerns. They're not going to have the same ties to one outcome or another. So when there is a robust consensus among scientists, especially among disparate disciplines, that is something that I think has a very high degree of reliability. The other time to consider is how overall plausible is the claim? And if it's something which seems to be fairly consistent with mainstream science, again, it's more likely to be true. If it's something which is out on the fringe and seems to be exceptionally wacky, I would be more cautious about the people who are promoting it.<br />
<br />
E: It's a little Occam's Razor piece there for you.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, mm, mm.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Otherwise, it's hard to know. You know, outside of your own field of scientific expertise, you basically have to trust the experts to some degree. Really, it's hard to know.<br />
<br />
E: But beware the arguments from authority from those experts.<br />
<br />
S: I think, again, what I would say is you can't invest authority in any individual, but large numbers of scientists building a consensus by hammering out their differences &mdash; there is some authority that you can invest in that.<br />
<br />
R: So Steve, you expect us to take that advice on faith, then?<br />
<br />
P: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
S: On my personal authority, you should accept that advice.<br />
<br />
R:Okay. Just making that clear.<br />
<br />
P: Very good.<br />
<br />
=== Gene Multiplication <small>(31:44)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: One last email and then we'll move on to our interview. This one comes from &mdash; the person did not sign their name, but their email moniker was Aukshia, and they write:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
A very short brief question: can you tell me what is gene multiplication<br />
</blockquote> <br />
<br />
S: That's an excellent question with a lot of relevance for the intelligent design/evolution debate, which is why I thought I would discuss it, briefly. Basically, what happens over evolutionary time is entire genes or large sections of genes can be duplicated in the genome. So you may start out with one copy of a gene, and, as speciation occurs over time, a descendent species may have two or three or four copies of that same gene. That's gene multiplication. The reason why that's really important for evolution is because those extra copies of the gene are now completely free from evolutionary pressures not to change. So let's say you have a gene that makes a protein that's essential for some basic biochemical function of the organism. Mutations in that protein are likely to be problematic, because you need its original functionality. But an extra copy of the gene can mutate freely and, basically, experiment with different protein structures and protein designs, and if it happens to hit upon something which has another use, it could then get adapted and co-opted for that use. That undercuts significantly the argument of intelligent designers that structures are irreducibly complex, that you can't reverse engineer them. In other words, they say "Well, this protein, for example, or this structure could not function if it were any simpler", or "If it's essential for its current function, how could it change into something else?" And, in fact, you may not be able to follow a linear path of one protein changing into another into another, because of gene multiplication. The other copies of the gene may have then been freed to mutate into other forms. So that completely undercuts the notion of irreducible complexity, and it is something that IDers have no answer to, at least none that I have personally seen, and I've extensively read their writings.<br />
<br />
E: Hey, Steve? When these genes or strands of genes multiply, do they sometimes just multiply and not mutate into something else and sort of just act as a redundant system to whatever it originated from?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and they usually do that initially. But just by random chance, they're going to mutate. There is a spontaneous mutation rate, and when you have a duplicate, there's no evolutionary pressure to keep those mutations from accumulating, do you know what I mean?<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Normally, if a protein has to have a specific structure to function, and its function is essential for the life of cells, it will be what's called ''highly conserved'' over evolutionary time. Every time a mutation occurs that changes its function, that organism dies. It gets selected against. So the mutations that occur are weeded out, and over time the structure of the protein's remarkably stable. But if you have redundancy, there's no way for evolution to keep both of those proteins from mutating. One protein is enough to fulfill the function that it has. And we see that, again, when you look at just the biochemistry of the body, we see that enzymes are related to each other. Proteins are related to each other, and you could see over evolutionary time this protein split into more than one protein that then evolved along their own paths and later served different functions and then may have split again into further derivations of that protein. So there's actually a family tree of proteins within organisms.<br />
<br />
E: And do they ever mutate into something that is harmful ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: ... or something that you don't want.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, there are diseases that we know about that are due to harmful mutations. The one that I'm personally very familiar with is familial ALS. There is a gene, a mutation in the {{w|SOD1}} gene, which is for a protein called superoxide dismutase, and the mutant protein is toxic to motor neurons and kills them and causes ''Lou Gehrig's'' or ALS-type syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: And that's why we have genetic diseases. That's what most genetic diseases are: harmful mutations of proteins.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: Now we are going to go on to our interview with Marilyn Schlitz. So let's go onto that interview now.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Marilyn Schlitz <small>(36:34)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is Marilyn Schlitz. Marilyn, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
MS: Thank you. Glad to be here.<br />
<br />
S: Marilyn currently serves as the Vice President for Research and Education at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Senior Scientist at the Research Institute, California Pacific Medical Center. You can read her complete bio on her website [marilynschlitz.com], and we'll have that link on our notes page. So Marilyn, again thanks for joining us. We basically wanted to talk to you tonight mainly about ESP research, which you've obviously been involved with quite extensively.<br />
<br />
MS: Sure. Okay.<br />
<br />
S: Why don't you tell us about some of the research that you've done?<br />
<br />
MS: Well, my whole story began around psi research. I was interested in 1977 in paradigm shift. Thomas Kuhn's book had just come out, The Structure of Scientific Revolution. Shortly after that, I was working with a neurophysiologist at the medical school, (''unintelligible''), at Wayne State Medical School, and he gave me a book called ''Psychic Exploration'', by Edgar Mitchell, the Apollo 14 astronaut. And this was an edited collection of essays from mainstream scientists doing rigorous research on a topic that was completely taboo. And it smacked of paradigm potential for me, and so I got really interested and began to do research about 1977 on psychic phenomena, ESP, psychokinesis, mind-over-matter. I was originally looking at remote viewing, and did several formal, well-controlled, randomized double-blind kind of studies using a remote viewing protocol. For example, we did a study &mdash; in 1980 we published an experiment in which my colleague was in Rome, Italy, and I was in Michigan, and he had prepared a target pool of 40 geographical locations, and my job on this end was to stop for 15 minutes at a pre-arranged time, everyday, and to describe where I thought he was. And then after the experiment was completed, we gave my transcripts, my reports about what I thought was happening, together with the list of geographical locations, and asked these blind judges to go out and to evaluate how close each transcript matched the geographical location &mdash; blind, of course. They didn't know which one was the correct one. And in that, we got six direct hits out of ten, which had a highly statistically significant outcome, and so though that looked as though there was something very interesting to be pursued in the area of remote viewing. I got interested in working with what's called the ganzfeld technique, which is a ... <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
MS: ... sensory deprivation procedure, and worked with {{w|Charles_Honorton|Chuck Honorton}} at the Princeton lab where we recruited subjects from the Juilliard school in New York. So we were interested in looking at the correlation between exceptional talent, creativity, and ESP outcome. And so, that one, if you're familiar with the protocol, the way it's designed is that a volunteer would come in, and they would sit in this quiet room for about a half an hour, and they had these kind of halved ping-pong balls over their eyes, which reduces sensory input, visual input, and then there's a red light that shines over this. This was a technique that was developed in psychology around the turn-of-the-century because of introspective psychology and the interest in looking at internal imagery. And so this person is sitting in this ganzfeld state with white noise in their ears, and pretty soon they start to see things. They start to see imagery. So it's kind of like a simulated dream experience. Meanwhile, there was another person in another room sensorily shielded, really adequate and very careful precautions were taken to make sure there was no cross-talk between the two rooms. And that person was watching a video clip. So, for example, the computer, when the session would start, would go in and randomly select a pool of four targets from a much larger pool of four. So there were many, there were hundreds of targets to choose from. And then it would pull these sets of four. It would then make another random selection and choose one. So, for example, one day I was the sender, and the computer randomly selected a target, a video clip from the movie ''Altered States'', and I had a drama student in the other room, in the ganzfeld state, and he was describing his imagery, and he described "red, red, red" and corona sun and felt like descending into hell, saw a large lizard opening and closing its mouth, and at that time I was watching a video clip that was from the scene descending into hell where everything is tinted red, where there's a corona sun, and right at the time when I was watching it, there was this huge lizard that opened and closed its mouth. So it was pretty striking, and then the study was designed such that there was a blind evaluation. So after that session is over, for example, the drama student, who was sitting in the room, took off his goggles, or his ping-pong balls, and then he was shown the four video clips in a random order without knowing which one was the correct one, and then asked to evaluate which one most closely represented his imagery. And so in that case he got a direct hit, a one. If you just did this and guessed all the way through, you'd expect 25% on the basis of chance. One in four. The average population, based on this lab, Chuck Honorton's work, produced about a 33% success rate, which was statistically significant. The Julliard students overall produced a 50% success rate. And the classically-trained musicians produced a 75% success rate. So, it was pretty interesting, and so that continued to excite my curiosity and led to a lot of different experiments. You can lead me from here. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Well, lets talk about the ganzfeld experiments a little bit, because this still stands out as the one most often set of data that proponents or believers in ESP or anomalous cognition cite to say that there is solid evidence for ESP. Would you agree? Do you believe that taken collectively, the ganzfeld experiments is sufficient evidence for the existence of psi phenomenon for ESP, that it should be accepted as an established scientific factor? How would you characterize it?<br />
<br />
MS: Well, first I don't make the clear-cut distinction between proponents and skeptics. I think that people that are trying to do rigorous research in this field should be open-minded skeptics. I think that's an appropriate position in which to do science in this area. So the positioning thing to me is a little complicated. In terms of evaluating the state of the science, I would say that the ganzfeld is a very robust database. It has been assessed using very rigorous quality criteria. It was the object of a lengthy dialogue between a skeptic and a proponent, as it were, {{w|Ray Hyman}} and {{w|Charles Honorton}}. All of that communication was published. The results that have continued to come out using the ganzfeld paradigm continue to support the effect size at around 32%, 33% success rate. So it does appear that there's some kind of anomaly there. It seems as though that's a robust technique to use to begin to look at this kind of thing. <br />
<br />
S: And, yet, though, it still hasn't escaped from being controversial, and you mentioned Ray Hyman. After exhaustively reviewing and doing his own meta-analysis of the ganzfeld experiments, he remains unconvinced that it represents an actual psi phenomenon, as do others. Susan Blackmore and Richard Wiseman, other scientists who have looked at this database, say it doesn't amount to evidence for psi.<br />
<br />
MS: Well, it's a different issue what people &mdash; like ''a prioris'' are an important thing for how a person evaluates a database. I don't think, as best I understand, Ray Hyman ever found anything substantive in terms of methodological errors. I think more it's about his own belief system and his assumptions going into it.<br />
<br />
S: Well, I mean, I disagree with that. He was very specific about the particulars of his methodological criticisms. For example, he found that the target images that represented a hit were represented in the second position more often than you would expect by chance alone, and, in fact, if you just look at the first position &mdash; when the first image was the target, the results were not statistically significant. But the later they occur in the series, the more likely it was to have a hit, which suggests that, all right, so the results are not due to chance alone, which means there's some effect in play, but that effect does not necessarily have to be a side effect, and there are statistical anomalies that could also account for it.<br />
<br />
R: I believe he also had something about sensory leakage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
R: Some issues with the method (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
MS: So one of the things about the ganzfeld procedure that I think is so useful is that there was a lengthy debate about sensory leakage that occurred. And then they went back and redesigned the laboratory and actually the setup there, so that they could address every single criticism that Ray Hyman had offerred. And went back in with an agreement on a set of methodological conditions that if, in fact, the results still continued to be demonstrated, would support the evidence, okay?. And, in fact, that is what happened, that they had this Joint Communiqué. They agreed to a set of methodological conditions. They went back in and found the results were still in the same ballpark as what they'd done initially. So the sensory leakage idea, I think, was a useful critiqué. It didn't end up being substantiated in terms of the database. I don't really think that there is much &mdash; certainly we can get into arguments about statistics, and I don't know if that's especially fruitful. I think that there is an anomaly that's demonstrated here. It's now worth, again, open-minded skepticism to really begin to understand, because if, in fact, these data are robust and if, in fact, they hold up, they have profound implications for our understanding of causality ...<br />
<br />
S: Sure, they certainly do.<br />
<br />
MS: ... the nature (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: We are all open-minded skeptics on this show. We are not ''a priori'' skeptics. We're ready and willing to be convinced by the evidence. I do think the ganzfeld experiments are very fascinating, because you do have a large data set, over 30 years, that has been haggled over by all sides very thoroughly. And it is a little microcosm of the process of science itself. Although, just for the record, you gave your interpretation of the evidence. There still isn't a consensus from Hyman and others that even the fixed protocols did fix all the sensory leak problems, and I know Susan Blackmore was particularly critical. She, in fact, went to some of the labs that were generating the most positive results from the ganzfeld experiments, <br />
<br />
MS: One lab. (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, one lab. You are correct.<br />
<br />
MS: Very anecdotal evidence, and, frankly, I know Susan and have known her a very long time, and I'm friends with her. I just saw her in Arizona at the Conciousness Conference., and she changes her mind, you know. She flips back and forth, so it's hard to know where she's going to end up.<br />
<br />
S: It is true that her bottom line opinion has wandered over the years, which is fine as new evidence comes in, she's free to change her mind. But her point, though, is interesting in that the one lab that she did visit she found significant by her account, by her account, methodological flaws that were not really reflected in the write-up on paper. Which is at least a cause for caution. When you're doing a meta-analysis and you're evaluating studies by what's reported in the literature, it may not be the whole story, ...<br />
<br />
MS: But to the best of my knowledge, the meta-analysis that Charles Honorton did excluded the data from Carl Sargent's lab.<br />
<br />
S: Right, and the effect size did shrink a bit when he did that, if I recall.<br />
<br />
MS: I mean it was still significantly significant. Again ...<br />
<br />
S: I believe it shrunk down to 28%. Was the final one when ...?<br />
<br />
MS: No. I don't know. I don't have all these ... (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: When you use the most rigorous criteria of the best studies, the effect size shrinks down to about 28% from 25, 25 being chance. So, again, which brings up another point. When you look at the entire data set, and I'm approaching this as someone who's looked at multiple other fields as well. I think the other discipline in which we have a very large data set over many decades is homeopathy.<br />
<br />
MS: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: And we see the same basic pattern that the more carefully you design the studies and the more rigorously the protocols are carried out, the smaller the effect size. The best, at least within homeopathy, the best studies are negative, and I do see the same overall pattern within psi research over the last 50-60 years, that even though there are protocols that produce some data that's interesting, the more rigorously you control it, the effect size seems to shrink as you get more and more rigorous. But I do think that there is still room for a subsequent large, multicenter ganzfeld experiment, a single study that could reach statistical significance where, again, all sides are participating on the protocol. So I think there's still some room for the consensus studies that will, hopefully, be more definitive than what we have at this point in time.<br />
<br />
MS: I would encourage you to invite {{w|Dean Radin}} to come on your show. He has a new book that's just out called ''Entangled Minds''.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
MS: And it's kind of the best assessment of the state of the field right now, and, to be honest, I haven't really been doing psi research for a number of years. It's not my principal area ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
MS: ... of research at this point. So, to really have a knowledgeable debate about the current state of the data, I would feel much better ...<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
MS: ... deferring to his currency.<br />
<br />
S: Sure, fair enough. We'd love to have him on. But, before we leave this question, we could use this to segue into other topics that maybe you feel more comfortable talking about. There are always two main points to consider when thinking about these controversial claims like ESP. One is: what is the state of the empirical evidence? But the other one, and I do think this is a point in which those who are generally skeptical do vary from those are generally positive about it, is: what's the prior plausibility?<br />
<br />
MS: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: So the question I would ask you is: if you think that the empirical evidence for ESP is robust enough to say that there's some phenomenon there, what do you think is a possible mechanism for that? Or do not even consider that as a worthwhile question?<br />
<br />
MS: So that's the third topic, because you said there's the nature of the evidence, there's your ''a priori''s, and then there's the theoretical framework in which you can begin to account for these kinds of claims. At this point, I think that the state of the evidence is comparable to a lot of areas of biomedical research or behavioral science, where you see some periodicity in the findings, you see some connection between the investigators and the outcome of the studies. So I'm in agreement with you that the database is not a hugely robust database. It's not something like you turn on a light switch and suddenly the lights go on. It's a different kind of thing, but if you compare the effect size on average in these various studies, fields, these domains, it's comparable if not better than what we find in something like, for example, the study that was done to prevent second heart attacks by taking aspirin.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
MS: It was a very large, clinical trial that, in fact, they called off early, because they didn't want to deprive the control group of the intervention, which was aspirin. But, in fact, when you look at the data, the effect size concatenated across a lot of trials, was very robust, but it's small ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
MS: ... on a trial-by-trial basis. So when you look at something like psi research, where you have actually a larger effect size, but you have no where near the kind of data, the database, the numbers, the support that you get for an area like the aspirin study. Then that leads directly into your second thing about your ''a prioris'', well, of course, we live in a mechanistic culture that has more comfort in thinking that aspirin could have a benefit on the physiology of the person than the idea that somehow thought or intention could influence another person's physiology. So, again, there's a world view issue that most cultures actually do adhere to a world view that accepts these kind of things, but our kind of materialistic and science-based culture is much more skeptical, which, again, I think is appropriate.<br />
<br />
S: Right. I definitely understand what you are saying, but when you use a phrase such as "we're not comfortable with this way of looking at things," to me that comes off as a bit dismissive. I would say &mdash; I would put it completely differently.<br />
<br />
MS: Well, let me put it differently, which is then the theoretical basis. Again, feeding your ''a priori'' question, like what is the plausibility from our world view, from our frame of reference, our assumptions that these kind of things can be true, and a lot of that then gets driven by the dominant theoretical framework that we are living in. So, we now live in a quantum world, yet our world view is still very Newtonian. So as we begin to look at the implications of quantum mechanics and particularly the notion of &mdash; and at this point I want to say I think this is a metaphor. I don't think we have demonstrated that this kind of non-locality that's occurring in ESP experiments, is quantum. But I think the metaphor, the analogy to what's happening in entanglement, for example, where particles can somehow be in a relationship even though they are not spatially connected, suggests that there is something that could account for these kinds of phenomena. It's certainly not weirder than a lot of the other things we (''unintelligible'') about the nature of the cosmos. So, I think that all three levels it provides a really fascinating area for us to self-examine. What do we believe and why?<br />
<br />
S: Right. Well, you bring up two points I'd like to address very quickly. The first is that the prior plausibility, you characterize that as being based upon our world view and assumptions. I would characterize it differently. I would say it's based upon our prior, empirical evidence. That we actually do know stuff about the world and the universe. It's not just assumptions. It's not just theory. It's actual body of evidence that we carefully accumulated over a few centuries, and that means something. And if a new idea is not compatible with this carefully assembled body of evidence, then we should look at it more skeptically than something which is consistent with what has come before.<br />
<br />
R: Right. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I think it all boils down to that.<br />
<br />
S: I think that would be a quick way of summarizing it. Then you went into area which I suspected you would, based upon the articles that I've read of yours, and that is using the idea of quantum mechanics to justify non-locality or entanglement. And this is an issue that we definitely deal with quite a bit, and I would, again, disagree with your interpretation and here's why. The phenomenon of non-locality and entanglement, which again, basically, is this notion that two particles could be entangled in such a way that doing something to one particle instantaneously affects the other particle over distance in a way that seems to violate notions of locality and space and time. But, in fact, we do not live in a quantum universe. We live in a very non-quantum, material universe. It is only quantum in very specialized situations that are extremely fragile and hard to maintain. We can reproduce them in carefully-designed experiments, but the entanglement that you're talking about is very fragile, and you have &mdash; there's a phenomenon which is well-established, which is called ''decoherence'', and as soon as these particles start interacting to any degree with anything else in their environment, they rapidly decohere. So if you think about the level at which our brains are functioning, there's actually no quantum effects inside our brain, because all any entanglement or quantum fuzziness has completely been washed out by the time you get up to macroscopic structures. Do you want to respond to that?<br />
<br />
MS: Well, again, I think that &mdash; yeah, I just don't think we know enough at this point to make any declarations about what is so. I think that, as I said, I was using it as a metaphor, as a sort of frame for understanding the plausibility of these kind of things. I just came from &mdash; the University of Arizona has a conference every two years: ''Towards Science Consciousness'', and I would say that there is increasing evidence to support the idea that the brain may, in fact, be a quantum processor, that there may be quantum processes going on in the brain, and that there may be some situations in which the temperature and moisture issues about the brain may not be valid. There was some data I was just looking at where they were looking at the stimulation of neurons in petri dishes, and looking at the kind of transfer of information between these neurons in petri dishes at temperatures that weren't really cold and under circumstances that weren't so dry. So I just think that at this point, we do not really understand the implications of how much we're embedded in the quantum field, how much the Newtonian framework is embedded in something that our science hasn't caught up with, yet. And, in terms of your first point, I think you're absolutely right that the empirical method is a valid and important and powerful tool for us in terms of our discernment and discovery. But science has progressed on the basis of anomalies, and we see this &mdash; everybody always quotes the Copernican revolution. But people went to extreme measure to try and maintain a structure that worked, and that people felt comfortable with, and so they did these elaborate hoops of trying to justify when anomalies would occur, such that they could explain it, and eventually the whole thing crumbled because the anomalies grew greater, the precision of the mathematics grew beyond what the dogma of the church was allowing for, and things changed. And our model of what was possible changed. To me, the exciting thing about these data isn't that yes, we've proven or no, we've disproven the existence of psychic phenomena, but I think that they really do stretch us and they push us to examine our assumptions and to recognize that actually the majority of people do believe in these kinds of phenomena. So, in terms of ...<br />
<br />
S: They certainly do. By all accounts, 50 to 60 percent.<br />
<br />
MS: And a lot of it is based on their own empiricism. I mean, that's based on their direct experience. So, I'm, obviously, as a scientist, suspicious of anecdotes, but anecdotes are what motivate a lot of people to formulate their opinions of what is true. It's an epistemological framework for the majority of people. <br />
<br />
S: It is absolutely very complex, and you mention Kuhn and paradigm shifts, and he created that concept. But I do think that in the final analysis, although the process of science is very personal, very culturally embedded, very messy, but over the long period of time there is a process of justification and, ultimately, you have to justify your ideas and your notions against objective reality, and that's sort of the difference in how science works, and I do think that Kuhn and other philosophers, post-modernist philosophers, basically miss that point. And they confused the context of discovery, where anything goes, and it is very personal and culturally embedded, with the very tedious workaday process of later justification, which is where really all the money is in sciences, is in that process of justification. Well, Marilyn, we appreciate you joining us on the Skeptics' Guide. It was a very interesting discussion. Any parting thoughts for us?<br />
<br />
MS: No, I appreciate your dialog and I appreciate that you're raising these kinds of questions. So, good for you, and I wish you luck on your show.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks, Marilyn.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Marilyn.<br />
<br />
P: Thanks, Marilyn. Good night.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks again for joining us.<br />
<br />
MS: You're welcome. Bye-bye.<br />
<br />
S: Well that was a very interesting interview. I appreciate Marilyn coming on the show with us. Occasionally we have someone who is not a dedicated skeptic on our show. It's always interesting to talk to them. We didn't have time to address all &mdash; she brought up so many different things, I had to pick and choose what we had time to talk about. But at the end, there, she did mention something in my field of expertise about the brain, and there is no mainstream neurological research that is demonstrating any quantum effects in the brain.<br />
<br />
P: I was saying off the air: I hate quantum mechanics. More scalawags have hidden in the mires of quantum mechanics and legitimate science.<br />
<br />
S: It is the favorite of weird science these days, because it's on the cutting edge and because people don't really understand it. There is nothing within quantum mechanics that supports notions like ESP or non-locality, etc. We don't live in a quantum world. That's the bottom line.<br />
<br />
P: I thought you made that clear in the interview.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, for Cecil, I will say that she did commit a logical fallacy during the interview, right?<br />
<br />
S: Which one?<br />
<br />
J: Ad Ignorandum?<br />
<br />
S: She did. When I mentioned that, she then retreated to ''ad ignorandum'', which is "well, we don't really know.'' So, we don't know what the implications of quantum mechanics are. You're right. If we don't know, then you can't use them to justify any particular claim.<br />
<br />
P: (''laughter'') That's right.<br />
<br />
S: It was interesting. I thought it was interesting.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:09)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Let's move on. We have just enough time for a quick Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
(intro)<br />
<br />
S: So every week I come up with three science news items or facts. Two are genuine, and one I make up out of whole cloth, and then I challenge my panel of skeptics to see which one is fake. And you guys, the audience, can play along. There's no theme this week, so just three unrelated items. You guys ready?<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: Yup.<br />
<br />
P: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. Number one: a new study by Belgium psychologists suggests that men bargain less aggressively when they're confronted with images of sexy women.<br />
<br />
R: (''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Item number two: eating more olive oil and fish and less meat and dairy was associated with a significantly lower risk of developing alzheimer's disease. And item number three: a new study shows that fetuses are capable of feeling pain. Evan, why don't you go first?<br />
<br />
E: Okay. I am going to say that number one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: You think that men can keep their cool, even if confronted with ...<br />
<br />
E: Yup, I do.<br />
<br />
S: ... erotic stimuli?<br />
<br />
E: Well, perhaps. You said it was Belgium? <br />
<br />
S: It was a Belgian psychologist.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, so that one, just, I recall reading something recently about the fetuses feeling pain, and I believe there was evidence suggesting that, in fact, that is the case. And then given the choice just between one and two, I just think two's more plausible than one.<br />
<br />
S: All righty. Perry?<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, fetuses feeling pain &mdash; that seems pretty straightforward. The second one, I certainly hope that that's not true. It would be a bad thing.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that one was in there for you, Perry.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, that would be bad. Sounds real, though, unfortunately. (''unintelligible'') are going to be dead. And then, number one, you know, could that be false? Yeah, because the other two sound true, so.<br />
<br />
S: By process of elimination, you'll go with ...<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: You'll agree with Evan and go with number one being false.<br />
<br />
P: That's correct.<br />
<br />
S: So you have faith in our male compatriots.<br />
<br />
P: No I don't. I just think the other ones are more true. that's all.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca.<br />
<br />
R: I'm a little unclear on number one. You're saying that men don't bargain as much, is that what you said?<br />
<br />
S: That's right. They are more willing to accept the bad offer, they will not bargain as aggressively, when they are confronted or after viewing images of sexy women.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, not necessarily if it's a sexy woman that's making the deal with them.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. Not necessarily with a sexy woman, just after having viewed sexy women.<br />
<br />
R: All right. That's tough. And the second one was what? Apparently I'm just not paying attention.<br />
<br />
S: Eating more olive oil and fish and less meat and dairy was associated with a significantly lower risk of developing alzheimer's disease.<br />
<br />
R: Mmmmmm. Let's see, I'd like to think that's true, just so it could annoy Perry. And then the third one about fetuses feeling pain, I was under the impression that that was still up in the air. What stage of pregnancy are we talking about, there?<br />
<br />
P: That's a big stage.<br />
<br />
S: The term ''fetus'' is very specific.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, okay.<br />
<br />
J: Well why don't you tell us what it is, exaclty?<br />
<br />
R: Like third trimester?<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, what is it?<br />
<br />
S: A fetus is post-embryo, so after the embryonic stage and before birth.<br />
<br />
R: Okay, well aren't there a lot of stages.<br />
<br />
E: Yes. You're stalling.<br />
<br />
J: There's about eight months between there, right Steve?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, fine. I guess I'll go with number two, just to pick randomly, because I don't know.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, and Jay, am I missing you?<br />
<br />
J: Well, you could say that. The men and nude pictures thing, this one is difficult, because men look at nudity so much that I think that they would just &mdash; I'll speak for Perry. Men look at nudity so much that I don't think that that's going to really have an effect on them being able to haggle or not. That just seems so random and weird that I'm going to pick that one as the fake one.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. So we've got 3 for one.<br />
<br />
E: All three men chose number one.<br />
<br />
J: And all for one, right, Evan?<br />
<br />
S: So let's start with number two, eating more olive oil and less dairy.<br />
<br />
R: Damn!<br />
<br />
J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: That is true.<br />
<br />
J: Of course it is.<br />
<br />
S: That is the so-called ''Mediterranean diet'', which is eating fruits and vegetables, foods that are high in the Omega-3 fatty acids, the good cholesterol, low in bad cholesterol, low in dairy. That's been associated with other good things in the past as well, like fewer heart attacks. And there's a recent study showing that there was a significant, like 40%, decrease in the rate of alzheimer's disease in people who stuck strictly to this diet over a two-year period. Actually, it was over a five-year period.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, how does that compare with the diet that Perry's on, the Southern Ireland diet, where he eats almost raw meat and sausage and everything deep fried.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yeah, that would be the complete opposite of the Mediterranean diet. But I included this one partly in reaction to our tension over vegetarianism last week.<br />
<br />
R: I appreciate that, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: So a Mediterranean diet is in fact quite healthy, according to this study.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you.<br />
<br />
P: The amount of years that she will live longer than us because of her diet is directly proportional to the horror of her life ...<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
P: ... by being a vegetarian.<br />
<br />
R: The "horror of my life." Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: Well, I actually enjoy the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet &mdash; I make a pretty kick Caesar salad.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah, it's good.<br />
<br />
S: And pretty much everything that is good in the Mediterranean diet is in that salad.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, your Caesar salad is epic. It's not "trick" or "kick" or whatever the Hell you said. It's unbelievably good. It's epic. I will say that.<br />
<br />
E: We'll post the recipe on the website in the future.<br />
<br />
J: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: We'll do that. Let's see. Which one shall we go to next? We'll talk about number one next. So, a study by Belgium psychologist suggests men bargain less aggressively when confronted with images of sexy women.<br />
<br />
E: Fiction.<br />
<br />
S: That one is ...<br />
<br />
E: Fiction.<br />
<br />
S: ... science!<br />
<br />
J: Oh.<br />
<br />
R: Ah. Suck it!<br />
<br />
S: It's true!<br />
<br />
J: Steve!<br />
<br />
S: Now what they did was they had two groups of men. One group, they had them view &mdash; it wasn't necessarily nude, just like pictures, erotic pictures of sexy, attractive women &mdash; and then they had them engage in a game where they had to bargain for money. One man would say what the least amount of money that he would accept out of like ten euros, and the other man would make an offer. If the offer was less than the minimum, they both got nothing. If it was more than the minimum, then he would have to give that amount of money, and they would both get to keep what they had. So both men are engaged in a strategy where they're trying to maximize how much money they get, without risking getting nothing. And men were &mdash; either they lowered the minimum amount of money that they would accept, or they would offer more money. So they basically played it a lot safer and accepted less money after viewing images of women than men who hadn't. Interestingly, they also did an analysis, a sub-analysis, of the testosterone levels of the men in the groups, and the men with the higher testosterone level had a bigger affect than men with lower testosterone levels. So it does seem to correlate with testosterone, specifically.<br />
<br />
J: How in the hell did they come up with this study?<br />
<br />
S: Well, what they were trying to examine is the impact of the use of sex in advertising and in sales. Does it really put men off of ...<br />
<br />
J: Their game.<br />
<br />
S: ... their game? Does it put men off of their game when they're haggling, when their bargaining, when they're assessing how good a deal is? So there's two interpretations of this. One is that it makes men more complacent. They're less likely to fight. However, there's an alternate interpretation they talked about, and that is that when confronted with the potential of attracting a mate, and they think that's maybe what's being triggered in these men when they see an attractive woman, that it triggers whatever hardwiring we have for "Oh, I have to win myself a mate." that they're more willing to play it safe so that they're guaranteed to have some money as a way of attracting this mate, and they want to avoid risking having no money, because then that would put them in the most disadvantageous position. So it doesn't necessarily make men were complacent. It may make the more rational, reasonable, and safe.<br />
<br />
J: But Steve, I find it a little odd that money would be part of our psychological evolution.<br />
<br />
S: It's resources. Whether it's a big game kill or a nice cave or cash, it's all resources. <br />
<br />
E: It almost sounds a little like governing dynamics, the whole John Nash theory.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, a little bit. It is evolutionary psychology to a bit, which has its skeptics. But anyway, I thought it was a very interesting result.<br />
<br />
J: That is interesting.<br />
<br />
S: And the fact that it correlated with testosterone level added a little weight to the overall study. The third one &mdash; new study shows that fetuses are capable of feeling pain &mdash; is fiction. Nobody picked up on that.<br />
<br />
E: Because it's an old study.<br />
<br />
S: Well, there is a new study. There are new studies out with this, but I altered what the conclusion were. There was a new study that showed that ''infants'', and specifically ''premature infants'' are capable of feeling pain, but not fetuses. And, at the same time, there is an analysis of existing evidence that strongly suggests that fetuses are not capable of feeling pain, that they don't have those neurological pathways in place and functioning. So, at the present time, although there's still a little room for some controversy because it's hard to absolutely prove what's going on in the brain of a fetus, but the consensus opinion at this point in time is that fetuses do not feel pain. But infants do, and even premature infants do feel pain. That's the current state.<br />
<br />
J: So Steve, what's the difference between an unborn child that's a day more in the womb, right?<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: And one that's been out of the womb for one day? There's actual difference between them?<br />
<br />
S: Well, that's a good question, and so you can separate &mdash; the studies you can separate them into a few groups. And for the first two trimesters, it's pretty clear there are no pain pathways in the fetuses. In the third trimester, it's more controversial, but there are changes that do occur with birth. The act of being born does cause physiological changes. The most obvious ones are the fact that the change is in the circulation. The lungs start working and the blood vessels actually start to change their circulation, so that blood goes through the lungs and not through the umbilicus to the mother, and that may result in other changes. There are also significant hormonal changes, etc. So, a lot of physiological changes happen with birth, so it's perfectly plausible that the fetus could go from not being able to perceive certain things about their environment, including pain, and then after being born, among the changes that occurs is their ability to perceive pain, change in their state of consciousness.<br />
<br />
J: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: But that's where there is still some controversy. There pretty much isn't any controversy any more over the first two trimesters. The pain pathways are basically just not there.<br />
<br />
J: You got me again, Steve.<br />
<br />
E: You got us all.<br />
<br />
R: You sly devil.<br />
<br />
S: Got you again. Rebecca, I thought you were going to again be the lone victor this week.<br />
<br />
R: I almost went with it, and then I forgot what number was what, and I just took it.<br />
<br />
J: Don't let her fool you. Rebecca really isn't that smart, guys.<br />
<br />
R: I'm really not very bright.<br />
<br />
E: She writes everything on the back of her hand.<br />
<br />
S: She does do a good job of faking it.<br />
<br />
J: She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. You know what I'm saying?<br />
<br />
R: Thanks. I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack.<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:16:43)</small> ==<br />
<br />
J: Steve, can I make a quick announcement?<br />
<br />
S: Make it quick because we are out of time.<br />
<br />
J: I just wanted to ask anybody out there listening to the show that if they have any website that they've seen would be a good site to reciprocate links with us, just send an email to the webmaster from our Contact Us page, and we can discuss it.<br />
<br />
S: Right, or any podcast-listing sites as well. Well, guys, Rebecca, thanks again for joining me.<br />
<br />
J: you're welcome.<br />
<br />
R: I'm a guy. You can lump me in with guys.<br />
<br />
S: Do I have permission to lump you in with the guys?<br />
<br />
R: Go for it.<br />
<br />
S: All right, well, guys, thanks again for joining me.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you Dr. Novella.<br />
<br />
S: And to all you listeners out there, thanks again for listening. Until next week this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro39}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9842Template:SGU episode list2015-04-22T05:30:50Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #38 as done; #39 as in-progress</p>
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<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 510]], Apr 18 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{i}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_38&diff=9834SGU Episode 382015-04-22T00:34:12Z<p>Jim Gibson: Finish transcription.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 38<br />
|episodeDate = 12<sup>th</sup> April 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Happyface_mars_small.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast04-12-06.mp3<br />
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=38<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, April 12, 2006. This is your host, Steven Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Hello, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hey there.<br />
<br />
S: ... Perry DeAngelis, ...<br />
<br />
P: Hey, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Jay Novella.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, guys.<br />
<br />
S: Welcome, everyone. How is everyone this evening?<br />
<br />
J: Good.<br />
<br />
B: Fine.<br />
<br />
J: Good, Steve, thanks. <br />
<br />
P: Spring is in the air, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, the weather is finally looking up in New England. <br />
<br />
R: It is. Seventy degrees today.<br />
<br />
== Announcements ==<br />
=== New Website and SGU on iTunes<small>(0:49)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: We have a a brand-new website about to debut, thanks to our webmaster Jay. Jay, thanks for all the hard work you've done on the website. It's looking good.<br />
<br />
P: Yayyyy! (''clapping'')<br />
<br />
S: We have a new URL: theskepticsguide.org. We're keeping our old one, as well, so all the old links will still work, but we're going to duplicate our site on our new URL, and we're making inroads. We've been on iTunes now for a while. We have a couple of good reviews on there. You listeners out there, if any of you get to the Skeptics' Guide through iTunes, first, thanks for signing up and listening, and if you can, take the time, tell us what you think about our podcast. Give us a friendly review on iTunes. Help get our profile up. We're number 68 as of today. I took a look at it. Of the top 100 science podcasts on iTunes, we're up to 68.<br />
<br />
R: Cool.<br />
<br />
S: So we're at least on the radar. Also, we are listed with a lot of other podcast listing sites. If you find a podcast listing site that we're not on, please let us know, so that we can get the Skeptics' Guide on there. A lot of those sites do have mechanisms by which you can vote for your favorite podcast or you can rate podcasts or review them. So we ask for it whatever help you can give us in getting the profile of our podcast up. We'd like to get more listeners.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Bill Nye <small>(2:19)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So, Rebecca, I was reading your blog, as I do every day.<br />
<br />
R: Aw.<br />
<br />
S: And you talked recently about Bill Nye, the Science Guy, getting into a little bit of controversy. Why don't you tell us about that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, have you guys heard about this? I love Bill Nye, because who is sweeter and funnier and zanier than Bill Nye, The Science Guy. He is the Mr. Wizard of the current generation. For those of you who don't know, he had a show on PBS, I think it was where it was running, where he does crazy science tricks with kids. They used to show his videotapes in school and stuff when I was in school, at least. And recently he was in Texas, I think last week, and he was giving a lecture at a community college, and he happened to mention that according to the Bible, God made two great lights. There's the greater light to govern the day, the lesser light to govern the night, and he told the audience that despite what the Bible says, actually the sun, as opposed to being just one of two great lights, is just one of billions of stars, and also the moon is no light at all, but it's actually lit up by the sun. So, apparently some people in the audience didn't really like having the Bible pointed out as being inaccurate, and they kind of got up in a huff and left and said on the way out, one woman yelled "We believe in a God," which is just so random.<br />
<br />
S: A non-sequiter, yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: All right. I'm happy for you.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, yeah, because apparently believing in a God, you can't also believe in reality, according to this woman. So it's kind of funny.<br />
<br />
P: We've certainly been at conferences before where people have gotten up and walked out, haven't we Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Oh, absolutely. If you're doing your job, you end up offending somebody, basically.<br />
<br />
R: And if you're in Texas at a lecture and you're going to talk about how wrong the Bible is, you're probably looking for trouble, and I think he found it.<br />
<br />
S: I think it's okay to do that, to put our current scientific view of the world into historical context. Again, I think Carl Sagan did that very eloquently. He was the best person at doing that that I have personally seen. So I don't know. I think you'd have to see exactly what Bill Nye said and how he said it.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Was it a gratuitous slap at the Bible, or was it just for historical context. This is what people used to &mdash; how they use to envision the universe, and now we discovered that the universe has a different structure. Which I think is important. How our ideas about the universe evolved over historical time is really an important thing to know.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah, totally, especially because &mdash; if you talk to Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, at badastronomy.com, he talks a lot about how the creationists have kind of &mdash; they're shifting their focus onto other disciplines, and they're attacking astronomy. So that's one of the things where we do have to kind of point out that, no, the Bible is not literally correct on this.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it's not a scientific document. That's the bottom line.<br />
<br />
J: Why would someone who wouldn't want to hear what Bill Nye is saying and be into it even show up at his lecture?<br />
<br />
R: Well I think that it's one of those things that in your head you're thinking "Oh, it's fun &mdash; science, magic, tricks, whatever," but then when it's pointed out that this actually goes against what the Bible said, it kind of flips a switch for them. They can't really &mdash; then don't really think it through.<br />
<br />
P: I think most probably they weren't thinking about anything, before they went. I'm serious. TV, it's fame. It's a name they recognize.<br />
<br />
S: Who knows?<br />
<br />
P: His name rhymes. That's enough.<br />
<br />
R: Well, I don't know. I think that for a lot of people, though, you've got science and you've got religion, and they go in these parallel lines that don't cross, and they're okay with that, and then ...<br />
<br />
S: People have no problem compartmentalizing their knowledge.<br />
<br />
R: Right. Those two things bump into each other, and then boom! Some people don't like thinking about those things, and it can be a little shocking when they first (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
P: If fact, you can be a fairly sound skeptic and have a religious ....<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Some sacred cow. It doesn't have to be religious.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: Even skeptics &mdash; religion is obviously a very common sacred cow, but I know skeptics who have pseudo-scientific sacred cows, you know, ...<br />
<br />
B: Chiropractic.<br />
<br />
S: ...and believe in some alternative medicine modality as almost with religious fervor, for example.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I know some skeptics who believe in Eastern philosophy, because to them it's not religion. It's just spirituality.<br />
<br />
P: Or something crazy like nanotechnology.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah! Right.<br />
<br />
S: Or something like that.<br />
<br />
B: Cryonics.<br />
<br />
S: Whatever.<br />
<br />
J: Get it right, pal.<br />
<br />
R: I think that just goes to show you that skepticism &mdash; a skeptic isn't just a person. There's not some person you can just define a skeptic. It's just a way of thinking.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: And some people apply it to everything. Some people can't.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's a method, and people are imperfect, and we get it wrong.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: You know.<br />
<br />
P: Quite right, quite right.<br />
<br />
=== Tom Cruise <small>(7:52)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well Tom Cruise is back in the news, again. He's still on about his anti-psychiatry crusade. He's now warning people to think carefully before they take those bad drugs that the psychiatrists are giving them, and he also claims that he can get a heroin addict off of heroin in three days using the Scientology auditing methods.<br />
<br />
B: Prove it.<br />
<br />
S: It's interesting. You know, you read the blogs in response to Cruise's latest outburst. One of them very deftly pointed out that Dianetics and auditing was L. Ron Hubbard's attempt at snake oil salesman. This was just his quackery that he was trying to make a fast buck at, and the bottom line is that it didn't work, and the AMA and legitimate medical institutions went after him for trying to sell snake oil. So he said "This isn't working out too well. My methods don't work, and I'm running afoul of medicine, so let me turn it into a religion. That way I'll be safe from the scientific and medical establishments, and people will believe it, because it's a religion." And that's exactly what he did. So Dianetics became Scientology. And here we go, whatever, 50 years later, we have lunatics like Tom Cruise who believe in it. It's just really incredible.<br />
<br />
P: Let's lock Tom in a room with a thousand people on these drugs, take your drugs away, and leave him in there for a couple of months.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, see how he does. <br />
<br />
J: Perry, you're glib. You're glib.<br />
<br />
P: See how he makes out.<br />
<br />
S: But I hear that he and a Katie Holmes are preparing for their silent birth.<br />
<br />
R: Aw.<br />
<br />
S: You can't have any noise in the birthing room, because ...<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve.<br />
<br />
P: Huh!<br />
<br />
S: ... it can cause trauma.<br />
<br />
J: Bob and I were talking about this.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah?<br />
<br />
J: Maybe I'll be more accurate: I was tripping out about this, because every time I hear anything about this guy, I lose my mind, and Bob said something very, very intelligent. He said &mdash; which is rare for Bob, of course.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
J: He said "Why don't they just say really nice things when the baby's born. Instead of being quiet, do the exact opposite of what they don't want, which is say nice positive things."<br />
<br />
S: Like life-affirming phrases.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and that should do &mdash; because what are they saying? They shouldn't say anything and have all that anxiety and tension in the air by what people are saying.<br />
<br />
B: Apparently, there's a window when you're being born where the baby just absorbs all this negative energy and these words and things. Well, if that's true and that could happen, then say things that can have a positive influence in their life instead of negative, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: So if you got this opportunity, take advantage of it.<br />
<br />
S: Let's not give them any ideas for the next book, right?<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
=== Chiropractic Time Travel <small>(10:47)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So you guys know I'm a big fan of the chiropractic discipline, right?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: I always love it when chiropractors embrace some other pseudoscience that has nothing to do with chiropractic or medicine. So, again, this is another one, Rebecca, that you wrote about this [http://www.chirobase.org/08Legal/burda.html chiropractor] who claims that he can heal people by going back in time and healing them in the past.<br />
<br />
R: Now I have no idea exactly how going back in time really heals you, because he talks about being able to go back in time, and he talks about being able to heal random things that are wrong with you, aches and pains, things like that. But, he never actually marries the two concepts, because you don't really expect him to make sense, but ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: ... I at least want a decent explanation.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, this guy definitely seems certifiable. What his point seemed to be was that it's not so much going back in time, the other part of this article dealt with mainly him doing this distant healing. All it takes is a phone call! You don't have to go to his office. Just give him a buzz and BAM! he could heal you over the phone, kind of this distant healing, and that's what the article I read discussed.<br />
<br />
R: He even has a magic word.<br />
<br />
S: He has a magic word.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: What's the word?<br />
<br />
S: Bahlaqeem, I guess.<br />
<br />
R: Bahlaqeem. Because, you see, it's meaningful because it has no meaning, and it has a soothing vibrational influence and contains the very special number of nine letters. So maybe while Katie Holmes is having her baby, she should just say "bahlaqeem" over and over again.<br />
<br />
S: There you go.<br />
<br />
J: Are you saying "ballet queen"?<br />
<br />
S: That would work, too: "ballet queen".<br />
<br />
E: Bahlaqeem.<br />
<br />
P: Can he cure anything on the phone call?<br />
<br />
S: Go to his website: "pain relief anytime, anywhere with a vibrational adjustment or manipulation."<br />
<br />
J: Oh, I know what he's talking about.<br />
<br />
S: For sixty bucks. Sixty bucks.<br />
<br />
P: For pain relief ...<br />
<br />
S: He'll cure you of anything over the Internet with his vibrations.<br />
<br />
P: Well, wait a minute. Pain relief is not cure.<br />
<br />
R: But he says ...<br />
<br />
S: Pain relief is a really good thing for cracks to treat, because it's so subjective.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, what's this whole time travel thing? How does he do it? What's his machine or what's he doing?<br />
<br />
R: I think he just does it in his head.<br />
<br />
P: Is it a wayback machine? The Peabody school?<br />
<br />
S: It's all just part of the woo-woo philosophy that he couches his claims in.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I don't think he has an actual machine or anything.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: Nothing that cool. I think quite literally it's in his head.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, maybe he goes's back in time spiritually, do you know what I mean?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, something like that.<br />
<br />
R: I think he has a DeLorean.<br />
<br />
P: Maybe he's nuts.<br />
<br />
J: He does?<br />
<br />
S: He drives a DeLorean.<br />
<br />
J: That means he's making bank.<br />
<br />
B: She's joking.<br />
<br />
S: "Back to the Future", Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Oh, my God. Are you kidding me? I totally missed that one.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, my God. That was too easy. Hey, when are you going to eat all that bacon, Jay?<br />
<br />
J: I'll eat it. If you can get your hands on that specific bacon, if it doesn't taste like fish, I will eat it.<br />
<br />
R: I am going to track down the healthy bacon pig, and I'm going to kill it myself, just so you can have ten pounds of bacon.<br />
<br />
S: We're waiting on the FDA on that one.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, listen. What person in their right mind wouldn't eat 10 pounds of healthy bacon.<br />
<br />
R: Well, me, because I'm a vegetarian.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, don't get me started.<br />
<br />
J: What sane person in their right mind wouldn't want to eat ten pounds of healthy bacon?<br />
<br />
P: You're a vegetarian?!<br />
<br />
B: In one sitting?<br />
<br />
P: Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! You're a vegetarian?<br />
<br />
R: I knew that would get one of you.<br />
<br />
P: You're a vegetarian?<br />
<br />
R: I'm the worst kind.<br />
<br />
J: You're not a vegan!<br />
<br />
R: No, no, no. The other way.<br />
<br />
P: You're a vegan?!<br />
<br />
R: I mean I'm the worst kind in that can see a piece of fish and say "Oh that looks kind of good. That's basically a vegetable", and I'll eat it.<br />
<br />
S: Are you a vegetarian for health reasons or for animal rights reasons.<br />
<br />
R: Vegetarianism is my one weird quirk that I allow myself. It's the one thing that I just decided that I don't need to explain to people, and uh ...<br />
<br />
S: It's your sacred cow.<br />
<br />
R: It's my sacred cow. I don't get upset over it.<br />
<br />
S: Ironically.<br />
<br />
J: But Rebecca, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
R: Yes.<br />
<br />
J: Steak! Steak!<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, not that into it.<br />
<br />
S: It's good.<br />
<br />
P: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're a vegetarian?<br />
<br />
S: Perry, denial is another episode. We'll cover denial another time.<br />
<br />
R: Seriously, I make one of the best cheesesteaks you've ever had in your life. I used to make Philly cheesesteaks for a living when I was in high school.<br />
<br />
J: You make no sense to me at all. You make no sense.<br />
<br />
R: I know. I'm an enigma wrapped in a mystery, or something.<br />
<br />
S: Covered with cheese.<br />
<br />
R: And sprinkles.<br />
<br />
=== Global Warming Intimidation <small>(15:54)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's move one. Perry, this one's for you. "Climate of fear &mdash; global warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence."<br />
<br />
P: George Will recently wrote about this.<br />
<br />
S: This one was written about &mdash; it's a Wall Street Journal editorial written by {{w|Richard Lindzen}}, who is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. So this guy is a real scientist, an atmospheric scientist, so he probably knows what he's talking about. And what he's basically saying is in his editorial is that climatologists or climate scientists who have a dissenting opinion from the notion that global warming is a real and coming threat are being intimidated either by drying up of their research funds or being threatened to lose their jobs by the institutions and the people who hire them, etc. So, this is, I think, a very interesting debate that has been raging in the scientific community. It's a very interesting debate for skeptics, because there is a very real scientific controversy at the core of this, but swirling around that is the interaction of politics and science, and it gets very complicated, and this makes it even more complicated when you have an MIT atmospheric scientist basically dissenting from the consensus opinion and also accusing the consensus of trying to intimidate the minority report, if you will. We had on our show ...<br />
<br />
P: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: ... months ago Steve Malloy, who is a fellow of the Cato Institute, who agrees with Richard Lindzen's position that global warming is bunk, and it's basically the sacred cow, if you will, of environmentalists, and there's basically a big intimidation conspiracy against people who disagree with it.<br />
<br />
P: And I personally lean in that direction.<br />
<br />
S: And I lean very much in the other direction. I think that there is a scientific consensus that there is man-made global warming, that the consensus is based upon 50 years of disagreement, and they basically hammered &mdash; this is how the scientific process works &mdash; people have different points of view, they hammer out their disagreements, they do the tests, they do the studies to answer the questions and the challenges from the other side, and slowly you build a consensus over time. And I think that that consensus has been built on very solid principles, on very solid evidence, so I think that at this point, we're pretty safe in saying that there is man-made global warming. What nobody can say, though, is what this means for the future, and I think that's where the anti-alarmists, if you will, have their strongest criticisms. We don't know what the implications are for the planet that there is man-made global warming, although there's a lot of reason, I think, to be concerned, because even though it may not change the climate for the objectively worse, meaning that as far as the planet Earth is concerned, a slight shift in the climate may not be a bad thing, but it may be a very bad thing for the economic institutions that we have set up on this world. If the bread basket of America turns into a desert, the Earth doesn't care. Animals will habitat-track, but we'll care if that happens. If sea levels rise a few inches, again, the environment won't really care, but cities on the coastline will care.<br />
<br />
P: Steven, when my ear hears things like the breadbasket of America is going to be a desert, I mean it's crazy talk.<br />
<br />
S: But Perry, that happens all the time, over historical time. The Sahara desert was a lush forest at one point. Climates change.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
P: And they changed before we got here.<br />
<br />
S: They do, and no one is saying that the climate we have today will and should be the way it is forever, but it probably is not in our best interest to hasten a change in our climate, because that could shift things. We could, you know &mdash; the current deserts could start to have more rainfall, and current areas that are currently very productive, may become dry.<br />
<br />
P: Well look, Steve, I agree with your analysis that it's not going to have a great of impact on the globe, but it will certainly on our economic institutions and ??? like that &mdash; a change in the climate. So will an overabundance of regulation and unnecessary rules and things along these lines. People overreact.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. I wrote about this in my weird science column, and I basically came to the conclusion that there is reason for concern on both sides. Unwarranted hysteria and overregulation will also hurt us economically and can have unforeseen consequences. But what we need are rational measures. I disagree with this Steve Malloy end of the spectrum who are basically saying there's absolutely nothing to worry about, it may be a good thing for the Earth if we raise our temperature a couple of degrees, and that the scientific consensus is not legitimate. I disagree with that position. I think there is a legitimate scientific consensus that there is man-made global warming. I think that the difficulty is in extrapolating the implications of that into the future, but most of the models have serious reason for concern in terms of melting ice caps, raising sea levels, shifting rain falls, maybe the loss of what are currently productive areas for farming. So I think that common sense, reasonable measures not to systematically shift our environment or our climate in one direction, I think, is reasonable.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, I read something &mdash; and tell me if this information is true. I read that the polar ice caps are shrinking, and they did a study from the 70s and they tracked it all the way up, I think, until the year 2000, and it said there was like a 20% decrease in the polar ice cap size, and that's raising ...<br />
<br />
P: Twenty per cent!<br />
<br />
J: ... the average sea level.<br />
<br />
P: The polar ice caps have not shrunk twenty per cent since 1970.<br />
<br />
J: Well that's what I'm trying to do is I read information and I'm trying to get a consensus, because I've read that, and that's disturbing. If that's true then there is &mdash; if that happened in 20-30 years, that's a problem.<br />
<br />
S: That is, in fact, true in terms of even the melting back of glaciers and the polar ice caps. What we don't know is if this kind of shrinking and expansion just happens over historical time. We haven't been tracking it that carefully for long enough to really know that. If you want to deny that man-made global warming is happening or is a problem, you could say "This is just the natural fluctuation. This is just the trend."<br />
<br />
P: Since 1970, 20%, one-fifth, of the ice in the polar caps has melted? Forget about it. The oceans would rise a great deal.<br />
<br />
B: It depends. it depends which pole you're talking about, North or South. The North Pole wouldn't affect the sea level because it's already floating, but the South Pole would.<br />
<br />
S: Only ice that's on land would actually raise the sea level. Ice that's floating won't raise the sea level because it's already floating.<br />
<br />
B: Didn't I just say that?<br />
<br />
P: So only one of the poles melted?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The implication of that much ice is not as severe as you might think to ocean levels, because only that portion of ice which is melting off of land into the oceans affects the sea level. Ice like icebergs, when they melt, the water they melt into exactly fills the space that the ice occupied, because the iceberg displaces its weight in water.<br />
When it melts into water, there's zero change in the sea level. So anyway, I don't know off the top my head if the 20% figure is accurate. I could check on that.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, so could I.<br />
<br />
S: Every week there are new reports of the global warming trends. So there's multiple independent lines of evidence that are going in the same direction. But because sincere and good scientists can disagree on this issue, I think sincere and good skeptics can disagree on this issue. That's what makes it interesting to me. Most of the time, we're all on the same page. We all think that Bigfoot is bunk and there are no aliens visiting the Earth, and etc. But it's good to have an issue that we can disagree on.<br />
<br />
R: Wait, Bigfoot is bunk?<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: When did this happen? Crap! Sorry, go on.<br />
<br />
J: Well, Steve, what's troubling about the temperature rising issue is that it seems like even though a lot of data has been collected, they really can't come to any solid conclusions, you know, because, like you were saying, it could say "Okay, the Earth is trending in a warmer direction one or two degrees." And then you hear people arguing.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Well, how accurate can we judge a average Earth temperature, and how much of a Herculean effort that is just to come up with some type of average number over ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: ... a one year period. There seems to not be enough information about it to even really say is it happening.<br />
<br />
S: Well, like many complex sciences, there's always room for doubt, just like when we had the conversation with Terry Smith about HIV causing AIDS. There's the same sort of complexity in that issue as well. There's lots of things we don't know about what HIV is actually doing and how it's actually causing AIDS, but that doesn't call into doubt the basic premise that AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, and I think it's the same thing, in my opinion, that the basic idea that there is man-made global warming is not called into question by these things on the fringes that we don't know. But I do see that some of the, again, the anti-global warming critics do use some denialist strategies in arguing against global warming. That's my perception based upon reading some of the arguments of Steve Malloy and even some of the arguments that George Will echoed in his article. I'm saying, for example, that in the 1950s we believed that the Earth was cooling, and now we think it's warming. That's classic. That's like what creationists do talking about the fossils that scientists got wrong 50 years ago. It's irrelevant to the consensus that has arisen 50 years later. That's a denialist strategy. So I think if the anti-global warming scientists want to be taken more seriously, they've got to clean up their rhetoric a little bit and not engage in some of the conspiracy arguments that they're making and not engage in some the denier strategy that they're using. That would be my advice for them. Not that they're wrong. I just think they need to clean up their strategy. But this is a topic I'm sure we will come back to, because this is not going to go away anytime soon, and it has very real and immediate implications for public policy.<br />
<br />
=== Happy Face on Mars <small>(27:14)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Let's go onto a lighter topic &mdash; a literally happier topic. NASA scientists have discovered a happy face on Mars. This was images that are being sent back by the latest Mars Explorer. This is funny, because these kind of things come back all the time, and it's helpful to put things like the Face on Mars into perspective. So here you have a nice round crater. There are one crater for an eye, a series of smaller craters positioned to be the other eye, and a smiley face, and, again, a series of small either mountains or craters that make a smile. It's in good enough position and proportion that it makes a very plausible smiley face, and it's obviously a natural formation.<br />
<br />
R: So you're saying the aliens didn't build the smiley face?<br />
<br />
S: Right. No aliens need be invoked to explain the smiley face, which is the same thing as the Face on Mars. You look at the early images of the face on Mars, and it was half in shadow, and it was really just an eye and half of a mouth. Actually, a lot of the early pictures also contained what appears to be a nostril, but the nostril was an artifact added &mdash; like it's added afterwards.<br />
<br />
B: It's missing data. It's missing data.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it wasn't an actual ...<br />
<br />
B: Feature.<br />
<br />
S: ... structure. It was just an absent pixel of data that just happened to be where the nostril would be, so that was completely artifactual. My favorite, though &mdash; have you guys seen Kermit the frog on Mars?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah!<br />
<br />
R: I didn't see that.<br />
<br />
S: Kermit the frog is awesome. So obviously the ancient Martian aliens knew about Kermit. Maybe they worshiped him. Who knows?<br />
<br />
R: Could have been.<br />
<br />
P: Didn't they come down and plant us here, or something?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, a lot of people believe that.<br />
<br />
P: Chariots or something.<br />
<br />
S: There are a lot of these sort of UFO cult and pseudoscience belief systems built around the notion that humans were planted on Earth by our alien cousins, which is ...<br />
<br />
B: All life, or just humans?<br />
<br />
S: Just humans.<br />
<br />
B: Well, that's ridiculous.<br />
<br />
S: Which is a problem. They had to have planted all life here, because humans &mdash; we share our genetic code with all other life on Earth: bacteria, peas, petunias, so ...<br />
<br />
B: Yeast.<br />
<br />
S: That &mdash; and it's random. It would be an infinitesimal probability if it would happen by chance. Life that evolved on another planet would not have the same arbitrary genetic code that life on this Earth does. So if you believe that anything was planted here, you'd have to believe that all life was planted here. And, of course, that would contradict the evidence for evolution.<br />
<br />
J: Plus, Steve, you know, think of it this way: they picked a smiley face and Kermit the frog as the images that they want to make us be able to view with a telescope.<br />
<br />
R: Well, they're happy guys.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Who would pick a smiley face and Kermit the frog, other than like a four-year old.<br />
<br />
R: I might.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: Granted, I would have gone with Gonzo.<br />
<br />
S: The Ancient Martian believers say that this is all a NASA conspiracy to make fun of and discredit the Face on Mars believers.<br />
<br />
R: Do we really need to make fun of them? Does NASA need to do that officially? Aren't they pretty much just making fun of themselves at this point?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they do a pretty good job themselves.<br />
<br />
B: You nailed it.<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails ==<br />
=== Evolution, the Promotion of Positive Science News <small>(30:42)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well with that, let's move on to some email questions. We actually received our first voicemail email.<br />
<br />
R: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: This is from Rich Ludwig from Hillsboro, West Virginia, and he responded to our request for people to send us, to actually record their voice speaking their question. So let's play that now.<br />
<br />
Rich:<br />
<blockquote>Hey guys at the NESS, I enjoy your podcast every week. I take every chance I can to spread the word about your show. I have two questions that I hope you could give me advice on. The first being about evolution. Where can I find good evolutionary information and reading? I'm a believer in evolution, yet I do not feel I can defend my position as well as I'd like. My limited background in evolution is in International Baccalaureate Biology 3-4 in high school, some time ago. I would like to do more research. Any recommendations as to books or websites would be greatly appreciated to further my knowledge about evolution. My second question is dealing with promoting critical thinking. I notice that skepticism deals mainly with bashing bad science. I was wondering why there isn't more promoting of good science? As I've looked through even your articles, few are about new discoveries such as Lucy or other findings. I'd like to see both on skeptical pages. Why is there not more?</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well thank you, Rich for sending in your voicemail. The first question, first you're absolutely right, and this is a good point, that believing in evolution and having a high school-ish education about evolution really isn't enough to stand toe-to-toe with a well-prepared creationist. You have to know really a lot of details about evolutionary theory, and you have to know a lot about argument styles of evolution deniers, of creationists, and intelligent design proponents.<br />
<br />
R: Namely making stuff up as you go along.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. But they're good at it, they're really good at making stuff up.<br />
<br />
R: They are, they're very, very good at it.<br />
<br />
S: Their logical falacies can often be quite subtle, in fact they're my favorite example, my favorite textbook example of logical falacies because they make every single one that there is. They really do. The sources that I've used that I think are good: on the web I think that [http://talkorigins.org talkorigins.org], and of course this link will be on our notes page, is the best overall evolution site on the web, and also deals with creationism and intelligent design, so you'll see lots of resources, not just about evolution, but also about debating creationists.<br />
<br />
B: Also, go to our [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx logical fallacy] page and read that until you're well versed in these fallacies, and you'll be amazed how often you find them crop up in debates with these guys.<br />
<br />
S: Right. And then read creationist websites and just name all the logical fallacies. I also &mdash; I cut my teeth, even when I was in high school and college, proselytizers would come to my door to preach whatever their fundamentalist religion was, and I would immediately spark up a conversation with them about creationism. If they didn't want to talk about that, I'd send them packing. But if they wanted, I would talk to them for hours about evolution and creationism, not that I thought that I was going to change my mind, but just to hone my skills, and just to learn what kind of arguments they make.<br />
<br />
R: Another good way to do that is to hit up some online forums, because you'll find people there debating things like that, and not only do you get to see the arguments that creationists are using, but you have some time to take the information, process it, google it, look into it before responding. You don't have to come up with something on the spot.<br />
<br />
S: I looked at my bookshelf just to see what evolution books I have on there, and some of the ones that I have that I think are good: ''Wonderful Life'' by Stephen Jay Gould is a great discussion of some evolutionary thinking. ''The Pattern of Evolution'' by Niles Eldredge. Of course ''On The Origin of Species'' by Charles Darwin, sometimes it's good.<br />
<br />
P: That's a tough read.<br />
<br />
S: It's a tough read, but you know what? It's worth going back to the source. Get through some of those chapters if you can. It really is worth it. It's amazing to me even now how much of evolutionary theory Darwin got right right at the beginning. He really spent decades working out a lot of the things. A lot of his solutions to some of the scientific problems of evolution are still the solutions today that we invoke.<br />
<br />
P: It's really, really brilliant, and when you think about coming from almost nothing, nowhere, to conceive of and systematize evolution in his writing, it's amazing.<br />
<br />
S: It was an incredible intellectual achievement. Also I have on my shelf ''Taking Wing'' by Pat Shipman who I actually studied under at Johns Hopkins. She's an excellent evolutionary biologist. All about the evolution of flight, again which is a topic which is frequently a target of creationists, and it is incredible how much we know about that. I also like reading about human evolution. The three books that I have on that are ''The Neanderthals'', ''Lucy's Child'', and ''The Hominid Gang''. Although those are getting kind of dated, so there are probably some newer ones out there that would be worth reading. I probably need to update my library myself. So those are some resources I think that...<br />
<br />
P: What about Sagan, Steve? ''Shadows''?<br />
<br />
S: ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_Forgotten_Ancestors_%28book%29 Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors]'' &mdash; you know that's an interesting book. It's not really so much about evolution as about human psychology and what we might be able to learn about human psychology from examining our closest relatives, other primates basically. <br />
<br />
Regarding the second question about promoting good science to balance our bashing of bad science, that definitely is a good point, and that is a subject that we have talked about amongst ourselves as well, that we have to make sure that we promote how cool and wonderful real science is, and that often the media promotes pseudo-science and bad science because they think it's cool and sensational, but they're really cheating the public, because real science is far more interesting and far more bizarre and cool than anything in fiction or science fiction.<br />
<br />
R: Like Snipley the furry lobster.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, like Snipley the furry lobster or black holes or anything to do with quantum mechanics or cosmology. It's all really interesting bizarre stuff. It's great. We don't spend too much time just talking about ordinary science, because regular scientists do that, and there are plenty of other standard science outlets that do that. Our niche is skepticism. It is dealing with the fringe, the controversial science, weird science, pseudo-science. So we are going to always emphasize that, but we do need to balance it with promoting some good science, and I do think that we try to do that on the Skeptics' Guide. Maybe we need to do a little more of that as well. But thanks again Rich for sending in your question.<br />
<br />
=== More on the Flood <small>(37:36)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: We got another email, again, coming back to the flood. So our listeners want to hear more about the flood. This one is from Huxley, who I believe has sent us at least one other email in the past. Thanks for writing again, Huxley. He writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
When people claim the flood was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, what do you tell them? He are just a couple of websites that try to explain how the Bible talks about dinosaurs, how they lived with us thousands of years ago, and much more.<br />
</blockquote> <br />
He gives a couple links which we'll have on our notes page <br />
<blockquote><br />
Please put to rest and air. Thanks, Huxley.<br />
</blockquote> <br />
<br />
Well I wish I could put this to rest. I'm sure I can among rational-thinking people. It's beyond my power to put this issue to rest forever, because you can't reason someone out of an opinion they didn't reason himself into in first-place, right?<br />
<br />
B: Good quote.<br />
<br />
S: But it did bring up a point that I had thought about, and we didn't have a chance to really talk about it. Two weeks ago we talked about the satellite photos that some believe are of the Ark, which to me looked like the edge of the mountain. Then last week we talked about, in response to a listener's email, how many animals could have fit on the Ark. And even by conservative estimates, there's just far too many animals in existence than you could've possibly squeezed onto the Ark. But creationists who also believe in the Ark, many of them claim that all extinct animals, all animals that are now extinct, including ones that scientists believe lived millions of years ago, well they must've all lived on the Ark, too, because they must all be contemporary of Noah. So, in fact, I've seen creationist books and literature that literally has pictures of baby dinosaurs on the Ark. So when we're doing our calculations of how many animals have to be on the Ark, really we need to consider all of the extinct animals too, including all the dinosaurs. So that tremendously increases the burden that would've been placed on the Ark and on poor Noah and his family.<br />
<br />
R: Wouldn't it be easier for the creationists to just say that the dinosaurs drowned in the flood?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I don't know why. I don't know why they don't say that, except for the fact the Bible says that Noah had to collect all of the animals.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And one of the links that Huxley provides talks about the fact that dinosaurs lived only a few centuries after the flood, and I thought about the two. Why not just kill them off in the flood. Wouldn't that make it easier?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. If I was writing a book about creationism, I would've killed the dinosaurs off in the flood.<br />
<br />
S: Right. That seems like the easier way to go, but I guess they wanted to avoid any apparent conflict with the literal truth of the Bible. They also tried to make a case for dinosaurs and humans coexisting, being coeval, by saying that biblical descriptions of the Behemoth are really a padasaurus, and biblical descriptions of the Leviathan are really Kronosaurus, which is &mdash; Kronosaurus is not a dinosaur, but a giant, aquatic lizard, contemporary to the dinosaurs, often compared to Godzilla. It's a giant, meat-eating, aquatic lizzard.<br />
<br />
R: Neat.<br />
<br />
S: It's quite a stretch.<br />
<br />
R: Now was there a biblical equivalent to Mothra. Just wondering.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: There should have been.<br />
<br />
R: There should.<br />
<br />
S: I bet you you could find some passage somewhere in Genesis that you could twist into Mothra, just as believably as they twisted those descriptions into padasaurus.<br />
<br />
R: And, you know, I bet if I could do that, I would have a lot more people reading the Bible than currently do.<br />
<br />
S: That's my challenge to you now, Rebecca. You need to find a Biblical reference of some cheesy Japanese monster like Mothra or Gamera or whatever.<br />
<br />
R: Done.<br />
<br />
S: I'll leave it open. You can have &mdash; I'll give you an open field. It could be any Chinese movie monster.<br />
<br />
R: I'll have it ready for next week.<br />
<br />
S: All right.<br />
<br />
R: And if I do, Jay has to eat 10 more pounds of bacon. How's that?<br />
<br />
S: Okay, it's a deal.<br />
<br />
R: Excellent.<br />
<br />
P: For those of you who follow the Sopranos, we heard about evolution this week on the show. There was an evangelical on there, and he said that evolution was Satan's plan to, what?, to destroy faith, I think it was.<br />
<br />
S: Right. He also said that scientists have an agenda, and that's why.<br />
<br />
P: That they have an agenda.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, like fundamentalists don't have an agenda? Here's our agenda, but don't believe scientists; they have an agenda. Okay.<br />
<br />
P: Christopher also brought up the stupidity of it, because he said T. Rex in the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve would be running around scared-shitless all the time, and the Bible said it was paradise.<br />
<br />
S: T. Rex in the Garden of Eden. Come on! I guess he was a gentle T. Rex, back in Paradise.<br />
<br />
P: I guess before he was corupted by sin.<br />
<br />
B: He was like the T. Rex in Toy Story.<br />
<br />
R: Ahh. I loved him.<br />
<br />
=== Chicken or Egg? <small>(42:37)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: I also got &mdash; we got another email. Maybe this one came in a few days late for April Fools' Day. This one comes in from Roscoe, and Roscoe asks<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, Roscoe, that is definitely a burning, scientific question that has vexed skeptics for centuries, really. But I believe &mdash; now Rebecca, we were discussing this earlier, before we recorded, and you felt that you had the answer to this question.<br />
<br />
R: Yes! The egg!<br />
<br />
S: The egg.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, the egg. If you about it in evolutionary terms, I mean, there's an egg. Eggs existed before chickens, right?<br />
<br />
S: But did chicken eggs exist before chickens?<br />
<br />
R: Well, that wasn't the question.<br />
<br />
P: No.<br />
<br />
S: That's true.<br />
<br />
B: Well, at some point, there was some mutation in this egg thing that just pushed it over the line and made it a chicken.<br />
<br />
R: Exactly.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, right. There was a creature that was almost a chicken, that gave birth to a chicken.<br />
<br />
R: Right, so the egg came first.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So an almost-chicken had to lay a chicken egg.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, if you were going to say "Which came first, an egg or an almost-chicken?", well, then I'd have to think about it.<br />
<br />
S: Well, hold on. I follow your logic, but I found a press release dated today, April 12, 2006, from the University of Chicago Press Journals, and the title is ''Evolutionary Proof That The Chicken Came Before The Egg''.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, no!<br />
<br />
S: So here we have an alternate hypothesis. There's a slight variation of this. The actual title is ''Evolutionary Proof That In Parentheses (Eating The Chicken Came Before The Egg)'', and what this guy says is that animals that are carnivorous will, through evolution, will develop a taste for an animal, and then later start eating that animals' eggs. So, animals that ate chickens, started eating the chickens and then developed a taste for eating the chicken eggs, later.<br />
<br />
R: Hm.<br />
<br />
S: So when it comes to evolution and carnivores, the chicken comes before the egg.<br />
<br />
R: That's very clever, but I'm still right.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you are. I was amazed that I found a press release that actually dealt with the chicken coming before the egg today.<br />
<br />
R: It's kismet.<br />
<br />
S: Coincidence? I think not.<br />
<br />
P: (''laughter'')<br />
<br />
=== Reasonable Threshold of Evidence for Cryptozoology <small>(44:58)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's do one more email. We got &mdash; this one comes from Jeremy from Albany, New York. Jeremy writes<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Dear Skeptics Guide. I love the podcast and listen every week. I'm a major skeptic and a science student in environmental science. One of the more common complaints against skeptics is that we reject everything out of hand, but I think the thing that's great about science and skepticism is it isn't rigid faith, and that we have a standard of evidence that once met will cause us to change our minds. <br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Absolutely agree.<br />
<br />
<blockquote> I was wondering if you could devote a podcast, a webpage, or even direct me to a webpage that goes over the kinds of evidence that would be convincing. The best example I can think of is: cryptozoologists found a specimen living or dead that was available for scientific study. I also think that if any of this stuff does exist, it might increase the likelihood of finding it if the believers know what to look for. I also think we in the scientific and skeptical community need to be clear about what we are looking for in terms of evidence.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
He asks another question, but let's answer this one first. It's hard to answer that across the board with every science. The reasonable threshold for evidence for believing any claim depends upon the claim. It depends on the prior probability. It depends upon alternate hypotheses. So it really is kind of a moving target and a judgment call for each thing. But I will refer you to some articles that we published on our website that deal with that kind of question. One is a paper I wrote on denial and skepticism, which talks about having a reasonable threshold of evidence, and also it cautions skeptics against the out-of-hand dismissal. I specifically used UFOs as an example. You don't want to engage &mdash; even though we know that aliens are not visiting the Earth, that's I think the scientific consensus, and we can confidently infer that from all the evidence, we still don't want to use that to justify making denialist sort of statements or dismissing evidence out of hand. We still have to give all the evidence a fair shake. So I'll refer you to those articles, and with respect to other other disciplines, it's basically an individual decision.<br />
<br />
=== The Psychosomatic Effect and Stigmata <small>(47:10)</small> ===<br />
<br />
S: He goes on to write:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
On a different note, I saw a show that suggested that the psychosomatic effect is a possible explanation of stigmata. I don't think it is, but I'm curious about the scientific consensus regarding the existence and nature of the psychosomatic effect. Can a penny really produce a blister in a hypnotized-suggestible person, or are these experiments flawed? If you could direct me to some of the scientific literature on this topic, I would appreciate it. Thank you for your time.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
The definition of a psychosomatic illness or psychosomatic symptom is one that is a physiological symptom, which is caused by a psychological cause. So somebody has anxiety or stress, and it manifests physically. That is well-established, but you have to separate out the different kinds of symptoms that can be caused. So, for example, there are some symptoms which are directly a result of psychological stress. Like high blood pressure can be caused by stress, and, by extension, heart disease. So you can have psychosomatic physiological symptoms due to &mdash; secondarily due to stress. There are many neurological symptoms that can be caused by psychological illness.<br />
<br />
R: But can you make your hands bleed, that's what I want to know. Isn't that what stigmata is all about?<br />
<br />
S: I was going to get to that at the end.<br />
<br />
R: Ah, sorry.<br />
<br />
S: The answer to that is "no". You can't cause your skin to break down and blood to start pouring out of your hand or your wrist ...<br />
<br />
R: Darn it!<br />
<br />
S: ... because you will it to. I have seen shows that tried to debunk the stigmata by citing that as a possible cause, but that's making it way too complicated. And that's also proposing a very unlikely mechanism to explain something that's much more simple. These people are simply cutting themselves, and they're doing it when no one is looking. I saw a show about a priest who claimed to have the stigmata, and the people described it as just appearing before their eyes. But on the video, that's not what happened at all. What happened was: he moved his hand over his palm, and then when he moved it away, the stigmata was there. It didn't actually appear before your eyes. It appeared while it was being hidden by his other hand, and what this guy does is he has a ring on his finger, which he can expose a sharp edge on it, and he just presses it against his skin and causes stigmata to appear. These things always occur on parts of the body that people can reach. People never have these kind of effects on parts of the body that they can't reach themselves, whether it's a rash or stigmata, and it always happens out of view. It always happens in a context where it could've occurred simply by cutting the skin with your fingernail, with a ring, with something hidden. So we don't have to invoke psychosomatic effect to explain stigmata. But, I'm a neurologist, and I have seen really profound psychosomatic presentations, like psychosomatic blindness, people who believe they can't see. And they really seem to believe that they can't see, but we can prove that they can see, pysiologically.<br />
<br />
R: How do you prove it? Do you just throw something at them?<br />
<br />
S: Well, you could do that. We actually do what's called the blink reflex, where you just flick your fingers in somebody's eyes. You have to be careful not to blow wind in their eyes, because then you'll get a blink response to the wind against their cornea &mdash; you get a corneal response. But if you just do a visual threat, and they blink, that's a visual response. You can also do what's called optical kinetic nystagmus. It's basically alternating bright and dark vertical strips, vertical lines, and you move that across their visual field, and your eyes will involuntarily track the moving vertical lines, and if your eyes do that, then your brain can see that strip, even though consciously you may be in denial about that.<br />
<br />
R: Sorry, what do you think would happen if you threw something at somebody, because from their point of view, they can't see, but their brain says they can? So ...<br />
<br />
S: Typically, when people have psychosomatic symptoms, they will still subtly protect themselves, and that's one of the tricks that we use to figure it out. Let me give you another &mdash; they probably would raise their arm or duck, ...<br />
<br />
R: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: ... and then have some rationalization for why that happened.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: It would have to be, I think, prepared and pretty dedicated to not duck. People also have psychogenic weakness. They believe they're completely paralyzed in one arm, in both legs, or whatever. In fact, when they have complete and total weakness, they can't even flicker their muscles, that's often a sign that it's psychosomatic. Uusually with neurological weakness, it's not 100 percent. It can be. It depends on the cause, but with that, you need a pretty significant anatomical cause. But if your right arm were completely, flaccidly weak, and I held it over your face while you are lying down on your back say in a hospital bed, and I dropped her hand, your hand would fall right into your face and would hit you in the face. If you have psychosomatic weakness, the hand will still flop down, but it will just miss the face.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So they still will protect themselves if it's psychosomatic. But they don't have awareness that they're doing it.<br />
<br />
B: So, Steve, is there such a thing is psychosomatic masochism? They would pass your test, wouldn't they.<br />
<br />
S: Not that I know of.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, really.<br />
<br />
S: Maybe if we find that, we can write a paper about it. What were you going to say, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: I was just going to ask if you think that psychosomatic weakness is a good reason for calling out sick from work?<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
R: I mean, it's a disease, right, of some sort?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's just a mental illness, not a neurological one. So it's kind of in a gray zone there. Psychosomatic symptoms can be very dramatic, but not stigmata, because that requires actual physical breaking down of the skin, and it's a lot easier to explain that with just simple tricks.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(53:33)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have just enough time for Science or Fiction, so let's move on to Science or Fiction. <br />
<br />
(intro)<br />
<br />
S: Every week I come up with three science news items or facts. Two are genuine, and one is fictitious. Then I challenge my esteemed panel of skeptics to see if they could tell which one is the fake. Now, I'm on a roll. The last two weeks I totally ran the table on you guys, as I got all of you for the last two weeks. So we'll see if you could break the trend. You ready?<br />
<br />
R: Yep,<br />
<br />
B: Bring it on.<br />
<br />
J: I'm good.<br />
<br />
S: All right, the loose theme this week is biology. These are all in the biological end of the spectrum. All right, item number one: new research shows that younger siblings are smarter on average than their older siblings. Item number two: scientists have discovered how to reverse the process of cell division. And item number three: researchers discover the "strongest glue in the world," produced by a river-dwelling bacteria.<br />
<br />
R: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: Perry, why don't you start us off.<br />
<br />
P: Umm. Well. Being an expert parent like I am, I would say that the first one &mdash; I can't think of any reason why that should be so. The third one, and I always heard it was barnacles that made the strongest glue, not bacteria. And what was the middle one?<br />
<br />
S: Scientists have discovered how to reverse the process of cell division.<br />
<br />
P: That would be kind of neat. That one sounds a little far-fetched. For no particular reason I'll pick number three.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
P: I think that one's false.<br />
<br />
S: All right, Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Well of course I'm going to go with number one, because I'm your younger sibling, and I am your intellectual superior.<br />
<br />
S: Well, then you would think that would be true, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: I do. I totally agree with that.<br />
<br />
S: Right, so which one's the fake one?<br />
<br />
J: I'm agreeing with you. I'm telling you. I'm going with that one.<br />
<br />
S: All right.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, come on! Everybody knows the strongest glue in the world is made by barnacles.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
J: I disagree with number three.<br />
<br />
S: So you are going on the barnacle hypothesis. You going to agree with Perry ...<br />
<br />
J: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: ... that the strongest glue in the world is fake?<br />
<br />
J: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: Is fiction. All right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Gosh. The last two weeks I went along with everybody else, and they were all wrong, so I feel like I need to zig. The second one seems so outrageous that that seems like it would be huge, but I think I'm going to go with it, even though I really want to go with the first one, because I am the youngest sibling, I don't think it's true. <br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: So, I'm going to go with number two.<br />
<br />
S: You're saying number two is fiction.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, wait.<br />
<br />
S: Or is number one fiction?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, wait. So only one is fiction? I just got totally confused.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so number one is: new research shows that younger siblings are smarter on average than their older siblings. So you think that that's fiction.<br />
<br />
R: I think that's fiction, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. Okay. Bob?<br />
<br />
R: Because I'm not very bright.<br />
<br />
S: Right, so anecdotal evidence.<br />
<br />
R: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: So you're going to forsake the argument from authority ...<br />
<br />
R: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: ... and go with anecdotal? All right.<br />
<br />
R: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: Bob?<br />
<br />
B: Okay, younger siblings smarter &mdash; that sounds reasonable, which means it might be the actual answer. The glue from river bacteria &mdash; that sounds completely plausible. I mean nothing that bacteria do surprise me. Their metabolisms are just so diverse, it does not surprise me at all that they would produce a superstrong glue. The reverse mitosis cell division &mdash; that sounds whacked. I can't imagine &mdash; come on! I mean the DNA is going to split back up. I've got to go with that just out of principle. I'm probably wrong, because it's too obvious, so I'm going with two.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
P: We're all over the board.<br />
<br />
S: You're split, so I can't run the table on you this week.<br />
<br />
R: Hah!<br />
<br />
S: We'll start with number three, since Jay and Perry both went with this one. Number three is science, is true. Scientists have discovered a river-dwelling bacteria that produces the strongest glue in the world. These bacteria use it to cling to stuff so they don't flow down the river. So now the next step, of course, would be to figure out a way to mass-produce it, which if bacteria create it, that shouldn't be a hard thing to do. Just make bacteria crank out the stuff. And they actually think it might have some applications as a medical adhesive, because bacteria use this to glue themselves to like leaves and other stuff, so maybe in a few years we'll be using bacterial glue.<br />
<br />
R: Neat.<br />
<br />
B: Bacteria rock!<br />
<br />
S: Bacteria are cool. They are cool.<br />
<br />
J: I guess scientists missed the Odd Couple episode where Felix Unger was trying to sell barnacle glue.<br />
<br />
S: Barnacle glue? Barnacle glue is old-school, Jay. You've got to graduate to bacterial glue.<br />
<br />
R: I think their onto horse glue right now, aren't they?<br />
<br />
J: I'm an old-school guy. I like the old school stuff.<br />
<br />
S: Who said number two was fiction? That was Bob?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So let's do number two. Scientists have discovered how to reverse the process of cell division. That is the most far out one of the three, this week. It also happens to be true. That is science.<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: This is huge! This is a major breakthrough. Basically, the process of cell division is one cell splits into two. Obviously, there are implications for aging. There are implications for cancer. There are implications for regeneration.<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: And they've actually figured out how to coerce a cell into stopping the process and in fact reversing it. But after a certain point, they can't do it. So there are still processes that are going on downstream that they haven't identified yet. Why this is huge is because it's teaching us a tremendous amount about the biochemical and genetic processes that the cells go through when they go through cell division, and learning about those processes will teach us about when it goes awry and lots of disease, like the most prominent one of course is cancer, where cells divide inappropriately or without limits. So, this is a basic science discovery. It's always hard to tell how it's going to apply clinically, but this is a major, huge advance.<br />
<br />
P: Do you recall who published the discovery, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, this was discovered &mdash; this was published &mdash; this is going to come out in this week's issue of Nature, the most prestigious science journal.<br />
<br />
P: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: The scientist is Gary Gorbski, a scientist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.<br />
<br />
R: Cool.<br />
<br />
P: It's from the US?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Published in the April 13 issue of Nature.<br />
<br />
P: Extremely impressive.<br />
<br />
S: We're probably going to hear about this over the next week or two. I think this will start to go the science news outlets. I picked it up on a press release. It's going to be published in tomorrow's issue of Nature.<br />
<br />
R: Well, Steve, that is pretty amazing, but I think we should focus on the fact that I'm totally right this week.<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Rebecca got this one right.<br />
<br />
R: And I got it right by trusting in my own stupidity. Yes!<br />
<br />
S: I thought I would get Jay on this one. So new research shows that younger siblings are smarter on average than their older siblings is fiction. That's false. In fact, however, their old research does show that. There are some papers that were published that suggests that perhaps younger siblings do have a higher IQ on average than their older siblings, and younger siblings are precocious in many ways, because they have their older siblings to learn from and to look up to. But now a new study, which &mdash; published by a Aaron Wickman, who's in the Psychology Department of Ohio State University &mdash; shows no difference by birth order. So this contradicts a previously held notion that birth order did make a difference in intelligence. This shows no difference. So, that one was fiction. So, Rebecca, you got it this week.<br />
<br />
R: Woo-hoo!<br />
<br />
S: Congratulations.<br />
<br />
P: Yaaayyyy!<br />
<br />
J: That's amazing.<br />
<br />
E: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: Well, that is all the time we have for this week.<br />
<br />
R: Ah.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, gentleman, thanks again for joining me.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks, Steve.<br />
<br />
B: Good episode.<br />
<br />
S: It's always fun.<br />
<br />
P: See you all soon. See you all soon.<br />
<br />
R: Good times.<br />
<br />
S: Until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_38&diff=9829SGU Episode 382015-04-17T20:49:56Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
|transcriber = Jim Gibson<br />
|date = 2015-04-17<br />
}}<br />
{{Editing required<br />
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 38<br />
|episodeDate = 12<sup>th</sup> April 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Happyface_mars_small.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast04-12-06.mp3<br />
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=38<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
== Announcements ==<br />
=== New Website and SGU on iTunes<small>(0:49)</small> ===<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Bill Nye <small>(2:19)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Tom Cruise <small>(7:52)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Chiropractic Time Travel <small>(10:47)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Global Warming <small>(15:54)</small>===<br />
* Global warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.<br />
<br />
=== Happy Face on Mars <small>(27:14)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails ==<br />
=== Evolution, the Promotion of Positive Science News <small>(30:42)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well with that, let's move on to some email questions. We actually received our first voicemail email.<br />
<br />
R: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: This is from Rich Ludwig from Hillsboro, West Virginia, and he responded to our request for people to send us, to actually record their voice speaking their question. So let's play that now.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Hey guys at the NESS, I enjoy your question every week. I take every chance I can to spread the word about your show. I have two questions that I hope you could give me advice on. The first is about evolution. Where can I find good evolutionary information and reading? I'm a believer in evolution, yet I do not feel I can defend my position as well as I'd like. My limited background in evolution is an International Baccalaureate Biology 3/4 in high school, some time ago. I would like to do more research. Any recommendations as to books or websites would be greatly appreciated to further my knowledge about evolution. My second question is dealing with promoting critical thiking. I notice that skepticism deals mainly with bashing bad science. I was wondering why there isn't more promoting of good science? As I've looked through even your articles, few are about new discoveries such as Lucy or other findings. I'd like to see both on skeptical pages. Why is there not more?</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well thank you, Rich for sending in your voicemail. The first question, first you're absolutely right, and this is a good point, that believing in education and having a high school-ish education about evolution really isn't enough to stand toe-to-toe with a well prepared creationist. You have to know really a lot of details about evolutionary theory and you have to know a lot about argument styles of evolution deniers, of creationists and intelligent design proponents.<br />
<br />
R: Namely making stuff up as you go along.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. But they're good at it, they're really good at making stuff up.<br />
<br />
R: They are, they're very, very good at it.<br />
<br />
S: Their logical falacies can often be quite subtle, in fact they're my favourite textbook example of logical falacies because they make every single one that there is, they really do. The sources that I've used that I think are good: on the web I think that [http://talkorigins.org talkorigins.org], and of course this link will be on our notes page, is the best overall evolution site on the web, and also deals with creationism and intelligent design, so you'll see lots of resources, not just about evolution, but also about debating creationists.<br />
<br />
B: Also, go to our [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx logical fallacy] page and read that until you're well versed in these fallacies, and you'll be amazed how often you find them crop up in debates with these guys.<br />
<br />
S: Right. And then read creationist websites and just name all the logical fallacies. I also, I cut my teeth, even when I was in high school and college, proselytizers would come to my door to preach whatever their fundamentalist religion was, and I would immediately spark up a conversation with them about creationism. If they didn't want to talk about that, I'd send them packing. But if they wanted, I would talk to them for hours about evolution and creationism, not that I thought that I was going to change my mind, but just to hone my skills, and just to learn what arguments they make.<br />
<br />
R: Another good way to do that is to hit up some online forums because you'll find people there debating things like that, and not only do you get to see the arguments that creationists are using, but you have some time to take the information, process it, google it, look into it before responding, you don't have to come up with something on the spot.<br />
<br />
S: I looked at my bookshelf just to see what evolution books I have on there, and some of the ones that I have that I think are good. ''Wonderful Life'' by Stephen Jay Gould is a great discussion of some evolutionary thinking. ''The Pattern of Evolution'' by Niles Eldredge. Of course ''On The Origin of Species'' by Charles Darwin, it's sometimes good...<br />
<br />
P: That's a tough read.<br />
<br />
S: It's a tough read but you know what? It's worth going back to the source, get through some of those chapters if you can, it really is worth it, it's amazing to me even now how much of evolutionary theory Darwin got right right at the beginning. He really spent decades working out a lot of the things, and a lot of his solutions to some of the scientific problems of evolution are still the solutions today that we invoke.<br />
<br />
P: It's really, really brilliant and when you think about coming from almost nothing, nowhere to conceive of and systematize evolution in his writing, it's amazing.<br />
<br />
S: It was an incredible intellectual achievement. Also I have on my shelf ''Taking Wing'' by Pat Shipman who I actually studied under at Johns Hopkins, she's an excellent evolutionary biologist. All about the evolution of flight, which is a topic which is frequently a target of creationists, and it is incredible how much we know about that. I also like reading about human evolution, the three books I have on that are ''The Neanderthals'', ''Lucy's Child'' and ''The Hominid Gang'', although those are getting kind of dated so there are probably some newer ones out there that would be worth reading, I probably have to update my library myself. So those are some resources I think that...<br />
<br />
P: What about Sagan, Steve? Shadows?<br />
<br />
S: ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_Forgotten_Ancestors_%28book%29 Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors]'', you know that's an interesting book, it's not really so much about evolution as about human psychology and what we might be able to learn about human psychology by examining our closest relatives, other primates basically. Regarding the second question about promoting good science to balance our bashing of bad science, that definitely is a good point and that is a subject that we have talked about amongst ourselves as well, that we have to make sure that we promote how cool and wonderful real science is and that often the media promotes pseudo-science and bad science because they think it's cool and sensational, but they're really cheating the public because real science is far more interesting and far more bizarre and cool than anything in fiction or science fiction.<br />
<br />
R: Like Snipley the furry lobster.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, like Snipley the furry lobster or black holes or anything to do with quantum mechanics or cosmology, it's all really interesting bizarre stuff, it's great. We don't spend too much time just talking about ordinary science because regular scientists do that and there are plenty of other standard science outlets that do that, our niche is skepticism, it is dealing with the fringe, the controversial science, weird science, pseudo-science, so we are going to always emphasize that but we do need to balance it with promoting some good science and I do think that we try to do that on the skeptics' guide, maybe we need to do a little more of that as well. But thanks again Rich for sending in your question.<br />
<br />
=== More on the Flood <small>(37:36)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Reasonable Threshold of Evidence for Cryptozoology <small>(44:58)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== The Psychosomatic Effect and Stigmata <small>(47:10)</small> ===<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(53:33)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9828Template:SGU episode list2015-04-17T20:47:27Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #38 as in-progress</p>
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Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
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Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
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Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
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Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
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* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
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* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{i}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
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<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
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* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9827Template:SGU episode list2015-04-17T17:14:04Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark #37 as transcribed</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
<br />
Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
<br />
{|<br />
!Key:<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{i}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
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</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_37&diff=9826SGU Episode 372015-04-17T17:11:22Z<p>Jim Gibson: Finish transcription.</p>
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|episodeDate = April 6<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, April 6, 2006. This is your host, Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me today are Bob Novella ...<br />
<br />
B: Hello, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Rebecca Watson, ...<br />
<br />
R: Hey, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... Perry DeAngelis, ...<br />
<br />
P: It's April.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Hello, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: How's everyone doing tonight?<br />
<br />
B: Good.<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Very well.<br />
<br />
S: I'm joining the podcast tonight from beautiful San Diego, California. I'm attending the American Academy of Neurology meeting out here. Very pretty city. Very cute.<br />
<br />
P: How's the conference going, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: It's good. The conference is always good. <br />
<br />
R: We had snow yesterday.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, my goodness!<br />
<br />
B: Could not believe it! Could not believe it.<br />
<br />
P: Really! Wow!<br />
<br />
S: It's funny. We had a little rain out here, like what we would consider a rain shower, but the San Diego news was covering it like a major winter snowstorm.<br />
<br />
B: Ha, ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
S: It was hilarious. It was almost surreal. They were interviewing people in the street saying "Yeah, the rain was coming down, and I got soaking wet!" Who cares?<br />
<br />
E: Uh, huh.<br />
<br />
S: It was almost comical.<br />
<br />
B: It's relative, though, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: It's all relative.<br />
<br />
B: Up north, they laugh at us. "What, two feet of snow? Are you ridiculous? Is that all?"<br />
<br />
S: Flatlanders!<br />
<br />
P: True. It's true.<br />
<br />
== James Randi Recovering <small>(1:44)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Well, James Randi Skyped me the other day. I know I told you guys this. He just wanted to say that he is recovering nicely from his surgery. He told me that he had the best day that he had had since leaving the hospital. For those who may not know, Randi had to have some emergency bypass surgery a few weeks ago, and it was pretty rough. They had to restart his heart twice, apparently, during the acute phase of the hospitalization.<br />
<br />
P: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: But he is now doing very well. He's getting stronger every day. He's not back to his full schedule, of course. He's still recovering, but seems well on the road to recovery.<br />
<br />
P: How is his aromatherapy regime going?<br />
<br />
S: Very nice, very nice, I think. Rigorous.<br />
<br />
B: Do you know why he had a good day?<br />
<br />
S: No.<br />
<br />
B: I do.<br />
<br />
S: Why?<br />
<br />
P: Why?<br />
<br />
B: Because I stopped praying for him.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, that's right. You're getting a little ahead of us, Bob.<br />
<br />
E: You're tipping our hand, Bob.<br />
<br />
S: But anyway, we are going to talk about prayer and healing in just a moment. Also coming up in the show is Science or Fiction, as usual. We are going to have a special neurology addition of Science or Fiction today, some evolution talk, and answering your emails. But we all certainly wish James Randi a speedy recovery. We all wish him well. We miss him.<br />
<br />
E: Hear, hear.<br />
<br />
S: We certainly want to see him back to his bright self.<br />
<br />
R: And he is still accepting presents, just so everyone out there knows.<br />
<br />
S: He is.<br />
<br />
R: He likes presents.<br />
<br />
E: Bottles of Chivas Regal and other good presents.<br />
<br />
R: I already gave him a Jesus bobblehead, so don't send him that.<br />
<br />
E: I'll give him the Buddha bobblehead.<br />
<br />
S: You can't have too many prophet bobbleheads.<br />
<br />
R: That's a good point.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Fish Evolution <small>(3:34)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: A couple of news items this week. Paleontologists have discovered a fossil fish pretty much caught in the process of evolving into a land vertebrate. So, obviously, we knew that fish evolved into land animals, and there are some fossils to document that, but there really was a fairly large gap in the fossil record for this connection. And now scientists have discovered a crocodile-like animal called ''Tiktaalik roseae''. It was described ...<br />
<br />
P: Nice name.<br />
<br />
S: ... described in the journal Nature this week, and it is a major gap-bridging fossil.<br />
<br />
P: Steve, you know, so was Archaeopteryx ...<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
P: ... and the fools were not impressed with that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that this is just another way that God is testing us.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: I'm not sure, but ...<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but there's a big problem, though. It fills a gap, fine. But now we've got two little gaps on either side.<br />
<br />
S: We've doubled our number of gaps.<br />
<br />
B: Twice as many gaps.<br />
<br />
P: True. The moving goalposts. It's not going to impress them.<br />
<br />
S: From a scientific point of view what's interesting is that it reinforces the notion that fish evolved first into shallow water species. So they evolved their ability to walk by walking in very shallow water, and once they evolved that ability, then they ventured out onto dry land. So they didn't go straight from being fish to walking out on dry land, which makes a lot of sense. Now ...<br />
<br />
P: Wait a minute! I've seen Gish's slide. Didn't it happen in like three steps?<br />
<br />
E: The cow with the duck feet?<br />
<br />
R: Can I read you Gish's quote, his response to this story?<br />
<br />
P: To this?<br />
<br />
S: To this? Let's hear it.<br />
<br />
E: Sure.<br />
<br />
R: It is hilarious. Okay, he says "this alleged transitional fish will have to be evaluated carefully." And then he goes on to say that he still finds evolution "questionable, because paleontologists have yet to discover any transitional fossils between complex invertebrates and fish, and this destroys the whole evolutionary story."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: That's it! It's just destroyed. It's gone. We might as well pack it in.<br />
<br />
P: Brilliant.<br />
<br />
B: Well, that's it. That one bit of evidence. That one fact. It's a house of cards. It just ...<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
B: ... falls apart because of that one thing.<br />
<br />
R: Exactly, there's one thing missing, and so obviously ...<br />
<br />
P: Why don't you tell our audience who Gish is.<br />
<br />
S: Duane Gish is a creationist who has made a career of debating evolutionists and paleontologists. He is a polished debater, and his style is what we call the "Gish Gallop." He just throws out tremendous numbers of misconceptions and mis-statements of facts, and you can't possibly get to all of them. It takes about 20 seconds to knock off a really good misconception, and it would take you about 10 minutes to correct it by giving all the background information, explaining why it's not exactly correct, so you can't possibly counter him in an open-ended debate, which usually catches paleontologists who are not experienced with this offguard. And they get crushed.<br />
<br />
P: You have to be studied in his gallop in order to have a reasonable chance of countering him.<br />
<br />
E: But hearing him in a debate is one thing. Listening to him being interviewed is a totally another thing.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
E: He is very unimpressive when he is interviewed one-on-one.<br />
<br />
S: If you can control the content, then you can totally destroy him, because ...<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... he does well in open-ended debate where he can say whatever he wants and go wherever he wants, but you focus him on specific questions, and it's easy to trip him up.<br />
<br />
R: It's like Mark Twain said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has put on it's shoes."<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
P: That's right. It's accurate.<br />
<br />
E: Good remark.<br />
<br />
S: Now, it does occur to me that we talk a lot about the fossil evidence, and in the ID creation evolution debate there's a lot of focusing on the fossil evidence. And, of course, the fossil evidence is a slam dunk for evolution, but I was listening to another podcast recently called "Evolution 101", an excellent podcast by the way if you've never heard it, and the guy was reviewing the molecular evidence for evolution, which I was familiar with, but he threw some statistics behind it. The bottom line is &mdash; you should listen to the podcast &mdash; but the bottom line is that the molecular genetic evidence for evolution is orders of magnitude more robust than the fossil evidence for evolution. Let me just give you &mdash; just if I can encapsulate a quick example. There are &mdash; because of redundancy in the DNA code for amino acids, which make proteins, any complex protein, like say the hemoglobin protein, will have, even without a single change in the amino acid sequence, there are many, many different possible DNA sequences that can equal that protein sequence, that amino acid sequence. For example, for a molecule the size of hemoglobin or cytochrome-C, which is one of the examples used in the podcast, there are one times ten to the 40th or 50th ...<br />
<br />
B: What?<br />
<br />
S: ... or 60th power combinations. That's right, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: Viable combinations?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. That many different DNA combinations that would result in the same exact amino acid sequence. There's also even more combinations of amino acid sequences that would result in the same functional protein. But let's not even worry about that for now.<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: Just talk about DNA sequences. And there's absolutely zero biological reason why two different species would have any relationship between their DNA sequences ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... for the same protein. There's no reason why two species biologically should be the same. The only possible relationship is a hereditary one. So, if you look at the different proteins between humans and chimps, many proteins that are highly conserved, in other words, there's a reason in terms their function for them to be the same between humans and chimps, have essentially no differences between the proteins. If you look at the DNA differences, they're all less than 3%. They're less than 3% because that's about how much variability could have arisen in 5 million years due to random mutations. No one &mdash; and that's true for every single protein you look at between humans and chimps &mdash; no one has ever found a protein that has more than 3% difference. The probability of just a single protein having a less than a 3% difference in their DNA sequences is like one times ten to the 50th power, on that order of magnitude. And the same is true of every single protein that you compare between humans and chimps. So if you follow a creation hypothesis, well why wouldn't there either be zero relationship, or why wouldn't they be identical? If God was following a blueprint, you could say well, he made them exactly the same. Why would he make them all with somewhere between a one and three percent difference?<br />
<br />
P: Works in mysterious ways.<br />
<br />
R: To test us?<br />
<br />
B: Ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
S: The only way you can make any sense out of that is that God made it look like an evolutionary pattern for whatever reason, which, of course, is a non-falsifiable hypothesis, i.e., outside the realm of science. And it's even stronger than that, because if you look at humans and horses, there's a bigger difference, but it's still far less than would occur by chance. In other words, the probability of the DNA sequences between any two proteins looking as similar as they do would be one times ten to the 30th power. And the farther away you get, the bigger a difference there is, but still the probability is miniscule. It's still one times ten to the 30th, the 20th power. The probability of this pattern existing is so infinitesimal, if it occurred by chance. It's basically one times ten to the hundreds of orders of magnitude, which is more than the number of elementary particles in the known universe. So this pattern could not have occurred at random. It exists in an exquisitely evolutionary pattern, and the only alternate hypothesis to a hereditary relationship is that it was created deliberately to exactly mimic an evolutionary relationship, which is absurd and also nonscientific. That and you never hear intelligent design guys or creationists talk about it, because they have zero to say about it. There's nothing you could say about it.<br />
<br />
P: Because they don't even know about it!<br />
<br />
E: Of course not.<br />
<br />
S: That's largely true, but I think even ...<br />
<br />
E: They can barely comprehend it.<br />
<br />
S: I think like Michael Behe and those guys, they know about this. They have to know about this.<br />
<br />
P: Okay, a few guys at the top.<br />
<br />
S: Those are the ones that we care about, though, right? Not the rank-and-file morons. We're concerned about the guys at the top.<br />
<br />
R: Not necessarily. I mean, the rank-and-file are the ones who are getting this message, and they're the ones who are supporting the people as they attack our schools.<br />
<br />
P: Joining school boards.<br />
<br />
S: It is the thought leaders, though, who are pushing this through and putting this on the national agenda. I agree, we're concerned about everybody, but we're not going to convince the 150 million rank-and-file believers or however many there are.<br />
<br />
P: 150 million! Take it easy, champ.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it depends upon what survey you believe and how you asked the question. By most account it's like 51% of Americans.<br />
<br />
B: If you had a debate with one of those guys, and you brought that subject up, and their answer was either nonexistent or completely lame, that would go a long way to hopefully making these fence-sitters think "Well, he can't answer that. Maybe science is right!"<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you have to have a format though where you can put their back to the wall.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And I have never come across a response to this from an IDer or creationist.<br />
<br />
B: I'm sure they're working on it. I'm sure they're working on it.<br />
<br />
S: I'm sure they have something. They must say something, but I've never heard anything cogent that you would have to actually respond to, which is interesting. They focus a lot on the fossil evidence, because it's easy. You know there's gaps, there's things that we don't know, but the molecular evidence is overwhelming. It is absolutely, unbelievably overwhelming.<br />
<br />
P: Maybe they'll pray to fill the gaps like they've been praying for heart patients.<br />
<br />
=== Prayer in Medicine <small>(14:130</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Right. Well, that's a nice segue to our next news item, Perry. Thanks.<br />
<br />
R: Good job, Perry.<br />
<br />
S: Item number two: A very large study looking at the effects of intercessory prayer on outcomes following cardiac surgery was just published, and the bottom line is the study showed no effect for patients who did not know that they were being prayed for. Interestingly, in a subgroup analysis of patients who did know that they were being prayed for, they did worse than the people who were not being prayed for.<br />
<br />
P: That's funny.<br />
<br />
E: I guess they were praying to the wrong god, and the other god got angry.<br />
<br />
R: I think that this is just proof that God exists and he hates us.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: I mean, do you need anything more?<br />
<br />
P: A spiteful and vengeful deity.<br />
<br />
E: Malevolent deity.<br />
<br />
S: Or he's indifferent.<br />
<br />
B: You know, I was praying for result like that. I'm just so happy.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: Now, obviously, this is not that interesting a study from a scientific point of view, because the prior probability and the design and the hypothesis are all really silly, but what is ...<br />
<br />
P: It's interesting that they spent $2.4 million on it.<br />
<br />
S: That is very interesting, although it's a monumental waste of money, although it is from the Templeton Foundation, so that money was going to get wasted no matter what. This is a foundation whose purpose is to scientifically study religion and spirituality. So it seems to me that the whole thing is based upon a false premise.<br />
<br />
B: That's a great use of their money, then.<br />
<br />
S: Right. The interesting thing is how the believers responded to this study. So Dr. Harold Koenig, who is the director of the Center of Spirituality and Theology and Health at Duke University, said that "science is not designed to study the supernatural." Oh, well, thank you. So he just said, basically, acknowledging that he wasted $2.4 million. The highly anticipated study, this is now a quote from Dr. Charles Bethea, who's a co-author and cardiologist at the Integris Baptist medical Center in Oklahoma City said "This study did not move us forward or backward. Intercessory prayer under our restricted format had a neutral affect."<br />
<br />
R: You see, that's just it. It's a no-lose study for them, and they knew that going in. If it turns out that God hates us and will hurt us if we pray for our heart patients, well then we'll just say that "You can't really study it."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: If they'd gotten the opposite result, they would have been trumpeting it everywhere.<br />
<br />
B: What a lame response that is. "I don't agree with the results, therefore, we didn't go forward or back."<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Come on!<br />
<br />
S: Guys!<br />
<br />
P: I disagree. I think the study is negative for them.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
B: Well, absolutely.<br />
<br />
P: Even without a response.<br />
<br />
B: We move forward in that now we have a better idea of the effectiveness of prayer. That's how we move forward in my estimation, but he disagrees with it, so he's like "We moved sideways. We didn't move forward or back." Come on!<br />
<br />
S: Guys, this pattern is the pattern that we see in all of "alternative medicine", or studies involving either spiritual concepts or healing energy or, basically, ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... prescientific notions of health or energy that this is exactly what they do every single time. When a study is positive, no matter how poorly designed it was, no matter how wishy-washy the results were, they trump that as the be-all and end-all proof of all of their concepts, not just the narrow claims of the study. When the study's negative, it's like either they say "Well, this just shows that this needs more study, so give us more money" or they say "Well, science can't penetrate this arcane modality. You can't treat patients like numbers, and it's not amenable to the kind of rigorous scientific study that they were doing."<br />
<br />
E: Special pleading.<br />
<br />
S: So absolutely, it's total special pleading.<br />
<br />
B: Good, Evan.<br />
<br />
S: And they absolutely refuse to acknowledge that you can ever prove that something doesn't work. None of them acknowledge that, and that's basically what most of modern scientific medicine is based upon, is proving what doesn't work. That's almost more important than proving what does work. We have to stop doing what doesn't work.<br />
<br />
R: It's going to be pretty damn difficult to actually test how God would respond to a prayer. I think in this case all they did was insult Christians by basically presuming that God is some magical genie who's just sitting around waiting to answer your prayers. Maybe he was busy with the final four.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: There's a lot of people praying for Florida.<br />
<br />
P: That's true. That's a good point. He did a terrible job, by the way.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, if I were a Christian I would be insulted by this.<br />
<br />
S: The whole endeavor of research into intercessory prayer is misguided, because you can't control who is praying for whom. You can't control for all the theological variables. One study &mdash; I don't know if it ever was completed &mdash; but they literally had like different subgroups where in one group the prayers are praying to a Christian God, in another group they were praying to Buddha, in another group they were praying to Islam.<br />
<br />
B: Who won?<br />
<br />
S: So, what, are we going to compare to try to prove which religion is correct or what's the better religion?<br />
<br />
R: My god can beat up your god.<br />
<br />
S: It's absurd. And again, if a negative &mdash; if this was an absolutely dead definitive negative study, it doesn't get better than this in terms of proving the null hypothesis: no effect, and if they're not going to accept this, and they have no real legitimate analysis or criticism of the study as to why they shouldn't accept this negative results, then they're never going to accept negative results, which means the research is totally pointless and a waste of time.<br />
<br />
R: You think they would've learned after the previous two studies that happened last year and then one in 2003, both of which also said that there was no effect from prayer, ...<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: ... that they would take that and figure out how to make a new study.<br />
<br />
S: The prior cardiac or CCU studies, although they were really negative if you look at them carefully, they were presented as positive by the researchers and in the media. The problem was they looked at lots of variables. Most of the variables were negative, but they picked the one variable that was positive. The real key is &mdash; and that's not legitimate.<br />
<br />
B: No.<br />
<br />
S: That's a way of cheating, because if you look at enough variables, by chance something will ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... be favorable.<br />
<br />
B: What's that called, Steve. I think there's a term for that.<br />
<br />
E: Cherry picking.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it's cherry picking within a study as opposed to between studies, but, yeah, you're right, Bob, there is a statistical name for that and I can't remember what it is. There's ways to control for that in the statistics, which they didn't do, and also the primary outcome measure was negative, and it was the secondary outcome measures that were positive. Usually, if the primary outcome measure and the secondary outcome measures don't agree, that's a negative study. The other thing is was that the outcome that improved in the second study was different than the outcome that improved in the first study. So the studies actually invalidated each other. They did not support each other. So if you look at those two studies taken together, they were negative. This study was basically an attempt at designing a definitive study that was much bigger, that fixed any of the perceived problems of the earlier studies, and it was dead negative. If this were anything else, it would be gone. It would be on the trash heap of medical history. It's over. Drugs or conventional therapies don't survive negative studies of this magnitude.<br />
<br />
E: But it's only a matter of time before the next study, just like this one, will occur.<br />
<br />
S: Well, hopefully, at least this study will prevent intercessory prayer studies from getting real research dollars.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: I don't care if it comes from the Templeton Foundation, but as long as it's not coming from money being diverted from money that could be spent on real medical research.<br />
<br />
P: Does the Templeton Foundation deserve a note, a single note of credit for releasing this study, even though it was negative?<br />
<br />
S: I don't know if they had any choice, because it was too well known that the study was ongoing. I think we had talked about this in an earlier podcast, that, in fact, there's a big problem with the file drawer effect, which is the notion that if you do a study under the radar and its negative, you don't publish it. You put it in a file drawer.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So the studies that get published are all biased towards positive studies. That's a serious problem in the scientific literature, not just in controversial things, but just in mainstream medical literature. We need to see all the negative studies, too, because that's important data that we need to see. If you do a meta-analysis, you look at a bunch of studies to see what's the net effect, and you're looking at only the positive ones that got published, of course there's going to be an effect. So that has generated the notion that when pharmaceutical companies apply for, basically, a license to do a clinical study on people, that they have to register their study, and that the data has to be made public. That they can't hide the data if they don't like it.<br />
<br />
E: Did Merc run into some trouble recently with that?<br />
<br />
S: Well, Merc was accused of not showing studies that may have suggested earlier on that there was a problem with vioxx and an increased risk of heart attacks among people who had risk factors. So, I agree with the idea that research on people &mdash; if you're given the privileges of doing medical research on people, one of the criteria is that your results eventually have to be put in the public domain. You have to register your study. You cannot hide the results because you don't like them. And journals need to do a better job of publishing negative studies, and not just always wanting to publish the breakthrough positive study that's going to get all the press. They have to do their job and publish the negative ones, as well.<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>(24:07)</small>==<br />
<br />
Well, let's move on to your e-mail. We did get a usual crop of e-mail &mdash; actually, we get an increasing number of e-mail every week, so thanks for sending them in. We're going to talk about a few this week.<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>(24:18)</small>===<br />
<br />
The first one is from Keith Bentrip, who writes:<br />
<blockquote>Hi guys,<br />
I love your show. I've listened to every one by now. I have a couple of thoughts about the Noah's Ark segment from 3/22. I couldn't verify the comment about two of each predator and seven of the rest, although I did find references to seven of the clean and two of the unclean.</blockquote><br />
Actually, I think it was &mdash; I looked it up myself; it was two of the clean and seven of the unclean, I believe, and that's what I was referring to, and in other translations it was seven of the domesticated animals. So there would've been seven cows and seven sheep and seven pigs. But only two lions and two tigers and two giraffes.<br />
<blockquote>Also, would any of you</blockquote><br />
Oh, he wrote "would" twice.<br />
<blockquote>Would any of you care to hypothesize just how big the Ark would have to be to house two of each species today? How much food would they have to carry for the duration; how much is the minimal amount of space they would need, etc.? It'd be an interesting thought experiment. Also, any insight into the geological evidence that we would expect to find for a mass extinction of that size? It would be interesting to hear some off-the-cuff remarks. Or if you know some on-line resources that already does this, I'd be grateful if you could point that out.</blockquote><br />
<br />
So... well, Keith, there are on-line reviews of that very question on [http://talkorigins.org talkorigins], and we'll have that [http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html link] on our Notes page, of course. And in the [http://www.skepdic.com Skeptic's Dictionary] were [http://www.skepdic.com/noahsark.html two that I quickly found]. They go through calculations as to how many species, how many individuals animals would've been on the Ark. There are, by the way, ten million species that have been identified. The number would be higher because there are some that are not identified. But if you eliminate all of the swimming animals, you know, that wouldn't have to go on the Ark, it's a lot less. Even if you just count birds and reptiles and mammals and amphibians, it's still tens of thousands of species, so a tremendous, tremendous number of individual animals would've had to have been on the Ark. The Ark was not big enough, frankly, to hold all those animals.<br />
<br />
R: Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah?<br />
<br />
R: Steve, sorry. Are you sure it's ten million identified species? I thought we were only at, like, two million, but we assume that we could go up to ten.<br />
<br />
S: Actually, you are correct. The total number of ''named'' species is right now around 1.7, 1.8 million. The ten million figure is an average estimate for the total number of species in the world. Estimates range from about 5 to 20 million, although some people advocate a much higher number. Even if you take an average estimate, it's about ten million, which is, of course a more relevant figure for the Noah's Ark question, rather than the number that we've just happened to name by this point in time.<br />
<br />
R: OK. Wow.<br />
<br />
P: That's a lot of species.<br />
<br />
S: It's a lot. But even if you &mdash; even a much smaller number would be far too &mdash; although most of those are insects. In fact, most of those are beetles.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But even if you eliminate all of those, it's still quite a few, quite a few species. Also there's a problem with feeding them. They all have different kinds of food. Where would the pandas have gotten the bamboo shoots, etc. What did all the carnivores eat? They would've had to eat the other animals, right?<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Not to mention excrement. Hello!<br />
<br />
S: Well, yeah, they would've had to have a massive effort just to keep the ship from sinking under its own weight in excrement.<br />
<br />
R: Well, you know, actually, I crunched a few numbers on that, if you want to hear some of them.<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
R: It's kind of funny. I found out that the volume of the Ark was about 45,000 cubic meters. And if you only considered a million animal species going onto the Ark, that would leave about 5% of one cubic meter per animal. And to kind of compare that, a human takes up about 20% of a cubic meter. So, for just a million animals, you'd basically be packed in there like a clown car, basically.<br />
<br />
S: A million animals averaging in size, like, a rabbit or something.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Or maybe a small dog.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah... instead of like, clowns, it's sort of like a tiger, you know? ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
E: Fold them up. Fold them up neat.<br />
<br />
R: You'd have to be really comfortable with other species. And so, that's just space-wise. If you looked at weight, I found a source that said that the Ark could probably hold about 50 million kilograms. And I found another source that said &mdash; they gave an average weight of an animal &mdash; they guessed about a horse, about 450 kilograms. This is very un-scientific, ...<br />
<br />
E: Sounds wrong.<br />
<br />
R: ... but that's the best I could find. And if you only went with 1.5 million species, that would end up at 675 million kilograms. So to hold all of the species, if you just went with 1 and a half million species, the Ark would've had to have been about 13 times larger than what the Bible says it was.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: It would have to have been about 6,000 feet long, 1,000 feet wide by 600 feet tall.<br />
<br />
E: Can you express that in cubits, please?<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
R: Um, no. ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
P: Ye of little faith. Remember the mysterious ways back in the other segment? Same thing here. Mysterious ways.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
R: To contrast it, the largest ship in the world that's currently being constructed is about three quarters of that size, that the Ark would have needed to be. And that ship hasn't even &mdash; that's still in the conceptual stage. They might not even be able to make it.<br />
<br />
E: I hope we're building it.<br />
<br />
P: Perhaps God dehydrated the animals, and they were in powdered form.<br />
<br />
R: That's a good point, actually.<br />
<br />
E: Freeze-dried. Just add water.<br />
<br />
R: Just little jars of animals.<br />
<br />
P: You don't know. You don't know!<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
R: Where's your science now?<br />
<br />
S: In terms of geological evidence, there is no evidence of a worldwide flood ten thousand or whatever years ago. And the other thing is, even if you could somehow get all those animals onto the Ark, survive the flood, release them, you still have a huge problem of that's not enough time for all of the genetic diversity to re-establish itself. You know, if you have only two, a male and female of a species, the probability that that species will even survive is pretty low. It's less than 50-50.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, Steve, you can't produce a viable community of animals with just two. It's impossible!<br />
<br />
S: It's not impossible, Bob. It's not impossible. It's very difficult.<br />
<br />
B: Two? Starting with two?<br />
<br />
R: Adam and Eve did it.<br />
<br />
S: You'd have to get very lucky. It is theoretically possible with just two species, but the big problem is that you have so little genetic diversity. And if they happen to match up a lot of recessive genes for bad things, they're not going to survive. And their children would have to be consanguineous, and that's where you get into the problems. It depends on how different the two individuals are to start with, and how many recessive genes there are for genetic disorders, etc. But it's a long shot. It's a long shot. In fact, the ...<br />
<br />
B: It's a long shot for one species, I guess.<br />
<br />
S: For each species. That would be for every single species.<br />
<br />
B: Right. Multiply that by all those species and you're talking...<br />
<br />
S: And once the lions started eating the zebras, I mean, they would be gone. What did they eat? It would take multiple, multiple generations to re-establish a herd. So it's completely, completely implausible. What I was going to say was that it is estimated that in order to have a stable breeding population, you need about 2,000 individuals.<br />
<br />
B: Right, that's what I heard.<br />
<br />
S: Two is tough. Not impossible, but very, very tough. So, we'll have a couple of links on our website, but that's the nuts and bolts for you.<br />
<br />
P: The whole thing is bananas.<br />
<br />
S: Basically.<br />
<br />
R: Scientifically speaking, yes.<br />
<br />
S: Don't get technical on us, Perry.<br />
<br />
E: Speaking of bananas...<br />
<br />
=== EVP <small>(32:07)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go to email number two &mdash; is about EVP. You guys all know what EVP is, right?<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yes.<br />
<br />
S: Electronic voice phenomena. Of course, if you put it in an acronym, it makes it sound pseudo-scientific, right? This is from &mdash; didn't sign their name, but their email moniker was shewells &mdash; writes <br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I just saw this awful movie called White Noise. It is about a man who record EVPs to communicate with his dead wife and, of course, lets the bad ghosts get through. Cliched, poorly-acted, and boring, yes, but I really got angry when there was a disclaimer at the end of the film, which said that of the whatever many EVPs recorded each year, 1 out of 12 is overtly threatening. This film is taking itself seriously. When I did some research on the Internet, I found that there is a whole society dedicated to recording EVPs, and even a website where you can buy special recording devices and receive helpful advice about the best way to pick up an EVP. Help! I would love to hear what you guys think about this.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Well, we have with us tonight. Go ahead, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: You probably didn't recognize the email, but that's Cheryl.<br />
<br />
S: I wondered if that was Cheryl.<br />
<br />
B: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: That is some one we personally know &mdash; Cheryl Wells.<br />
<br />
B: Hi, Cheryl.<br />
<br />
P: Hi, Cheryl<br />
<br />
S: Hi, Cheryl. Sign your email next time! Alright. But we do have with us tonight a recording equipment expert, or at least somebody who has access to recording equipment experts. Evan!<br />
<br />
E: That's me.<br />
<br />
S: Tell us what you learned about recording white noise.<br />
<br />
E: Well, recording white noise. It does occur. It occurs often. It has happened to both amateurs and professionals, and it's merely a matter of identifying exactly what you have there that you have recorded. Well, the folks, the proponents of EVP who believe that these voices that occur in recordings, mostly audio cassette recordings, they believe that they are people who have passed on, the dead speaking to us through a telekinetic means of communication, which you otherwise can't hear while you are recording whatever it is you are trying to record. You only hear it on playback of the tape afterwards.<br />
<br />
P: Very much like ghost photographs.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Right, exactly. You don't see the ghost there, but when you go and have your film developed, voila! there's balls of light and camera straps and other things. In any case, with EVP, what is going on here is that different things. The most common cause of these phenomenon are radio frequencies, known as RF, and also electromagnetic fields, EMFs, as long as we're talking about initials and sounding scientific here. So radio frequencies, for instance, radio stations, especially when these people are out there doing these recordings. If they're using any kind of wireless device in their process of recording, a wireless microphone or even a wireless recorder, those instruments can pick up randomly occurring radio frequency signals, and it will go on to the tape.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
E: The actual machine will wind up recording that, and you may not have heard it in your headphones while you were listening at the time, you go back and hear it and all of a sudden you hear somebody talking. Well, it was most likely radio frequency.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
E: Now in some cases, people aren't using wireless systems, they're using hardwired systems, that is a hardwired microphone going into a recording device which is either battery-operated or plugged into a wall, and although that eliminates, for the most part, radio frequencies and electromagnetic fields, there are other ways that these noises are getting onto the tapes. For instance, in fact, I asked some people at work &mdash; we have several various engineers at work, and I went and spoke to them today about this very thing and got some opinions and some examples of their encounters with this sort of phenomenon. In one case, they attributed it to a broken cable. They had a microphone going to an audio mixer and then feeding a tape recorder, and they were listening to it at the audio mixer, and they were not hearing anything out of the ordinary. But you go ahead and listen to it on the tape deck when they had their headphones plugged in there, and they were hearing noise like a radio station. What they attributed it to was a bad cable that was connected between the audio mixer and the recorder. The cable was frayed or there was a bad shield inside the cable, which brought down what would normally be protecting the cable from outside interference, and voila!, it was picking up the radio station and it came out on tape.<br />
<br />
P: Well, Evan, these things might explain, might ... explain, how some of these noises get onto these tapes, you still can't explain why one out of twelve of them is overtly threatening.<br />
<br />
E: Ah. Well, overtly threatening.<br />
<br />
P: I'd like an explanation, please, Mr. Skeptic.<br />
<br />
R: I've heard that 1 out of 12 unicorns are evil, but, you know, it hasn't been confirmed.<br />
<br />
P: Don't confuse the issue. We're talking about ghosts ...<br />
<br />
R: Oh, I'm sorry.<br />
<br />
P: ... and not ridiculous unicorns.<br />
<br />
E: Well, it's a good thing our friends at the Skeptic Dictionary online does a very good job of explaining that.<br />
<br />
R: Is it kind of like &mdash; what's it called? Pareidolia?<br />
<br />
E: Pareidolia. An audio form ...<br />
<br />
B: Pareidolia.<br />
<br />
R: Audio, right.<br />
<br />
E: ... of pareidolia.<br />
<br />
P: Pareidolia of the ears.<br />
<br />
E: Voices are most likely people creating meaning out of random noise.<br />
<br />
P: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: So, certainly that is the case. Now I've gone online and I've listened to some samples of EVPs and what the proponents are saying are people talking from the dead, and I tell you what. It just seems so obvious to me that what they have picked up are radio frequencies of other things like baby monitors. There are cases in which people have been picking up the baby monitor ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: ... next door on the recording, and it's quite obvious that that's the case. And in other cases, there's just this sort of this electronic clicking that absolutely is random and has no pattern to it whatsoever, and they are somehow translating that into actual words that they think someone is talking to them. So, you know, the human mind here is being tricked.<br />
<br />
S: Right, so even without all the technical problems, even if you have a basically a pretty good recording with nothing extraneous, and it's just white noise, these people listen to it for hours with their headphones on and interpret any little popping click ...<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... that might sound like a snatch of words as a ghost saying something.<br />
<br />
B: Like playing a record backwards. Similar.<br />
<br />
S: Right, so their imagination is the ultimate mishap here, not necessarily anything technical. But it's helped along by all the things that you're talking about.<br />
<br />
R: I wonder if they've considered taking up golfing or something.<br />
<br />
S: Something. These people just need a good hobby. They do. They need to do something more productive.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. I think that the number of ghost sightings would go down drastically if only we could get more people doing fun stuff like golfing.<br />
<br />
P: Playing golf?<br />
<br />
E: And I don't think anybody should really be surprised that white noise and other movies and television shows coming out of the Hollywood part of the world totally fall for these things hook, line, and sinker. They believe in it because they need their product to succeed, basically. They don't care.<br />
<br />
S: I don't think they believe it. I think they say it because they think it's going to sell the movie more. I don't think they care one way or the other if it's real.<br />
<br />
P: That's right. All they're concerned about is selling products.<br />
<br />
S: Right. They put a little disclaimer at the end, just to give movie some more appeal. Anyway, it's kind of like Signs, the crop circle movie.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: It's similar. I remember when Disney had their Atlantis movie come out, the animated movie on Atlantis, they created this pseudo-documentary about Atlantis that was just a really thinly veiled promotion for the movie.<br />
<br />
P: Which happened to stink, by the way.<br />
<br />
S: Which happened &mdash; it did stink. The modern crop of Disney animated movies have all been excellent, but that was one clunker, and I'm kind of happy about that, because ...<br />
<br />
B: I don't know.<br />
<br />
S: They did promote the movie by making it seem like there was real evidence for Atlantis.<br />
<br />
B: Well, yeah, that's baloney, but the movie was okay. It was enjoyable.<br />
<br />
P: Steve, edit that comment from Bob. (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
B: It was no Lion King.<br />
<br />
S: It was no Lion King, all right.<br />
<br />
R: What's wrong with you guys?<br />
<br />
E: Okay, but they didn't try to interview lion tamers. (''unintelligible'') This could've possibly happened.<br />
<br />
S: Is it possible that animals really do talk to each other?<br />
<br />
R: You know, Steve has kids. What's your excuse, the rest of you?<br />
<br />
P: For watching these movies?<br />
<br />
E: Bob has a daughter. I have a daughter. Perry's the only one here.<br />
<br />
P: That's right. I might have a daughter one day. I have to prepare myself.<br />
<br />
S: Perry, you might have one out there now that we don't know about.<br />
<br />
P: That's right, for all I know.<br />
<br />
B: Rebecca, I love it.<br />
<br />
P: How old are you, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
B: I love animation.<br />
<br />
R: Okay, I'm just ...<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
R: I like good animation, too. but I don't bicker over Disney movies.<br />
<br />
P: Well.<br />
<br />
S: Listen, the best part of having kids if that you have an excuse to see all these cool, animated movies.<br />
<br />
R: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Let's move on.<br />
<br />
P: I knew there was a reason to have kids.<br />
<br />
=== More on the Solar Eclipse <small>(41:55)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Email number three: a quick follow-up on the solar eclipse bit that we did. This one comes from Brian Milsap. He writes<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
I was somewhat surprised to hear your assertion that even during totality of solar eclipses, it's not safe to look at because a crescent of the sun is still visible, or something along those lines, and that most people now know it's not safe looking at an eclipse. I'm not an astronomer, but I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. During totality the entire photosphere is blocked by the moon. Thus the term 'totality'. At this time, it is in fact safe to look. Every reference I could find on the NASA eclipse website seems to confirm this. I'd be interested to hear your source for the opposite position.<br />
</blockquote> <br />
<br />
Well, I did look into this further and went back and forth with Brian a little bit on this, and Brian is absolutely correct. Just to get a little more detail that we gave on the previous show, there are a few different kinds of solar eclipses. There's a partial eclipse where the moon is not directly in front of the sun ...<br />
<br />
B: Annular is another one.<br />
<br />
S: An annular eclipse is when the moon is in front of the sun, but the moon is smaller than the son, and a total eclipse is when the moon is in front of the sun, but the moon is bigger than the sun. Now the reason why there's that difference is because the distance of the moon to the earth varies a little bit, so the moon changes in size, in its apparent or angular size, and the Earth's distance from the sun also changes during the year, so that the apparent size of the sun is also a little variable, and those size ranges for the moon and the sun, those apparent angular size ranges, overlap, which is why at certain times it's possible for the moon to be the exact same size of the sun, and in other times the moon can be bigger than the sun, while at yet other times the sun can be bigger than the moon. The recent solar eclipse that we were talking about was in fact a total eclipse, so the moon was bigger than the sun. It did completely block out the sun. During an annular eclipse, there would be still be a little rim of sun showing through and you shouldn't look at it. It is safe to look at the eclipse during that moment of totality, but you have to be sure to look away before even the diamond affect, the diamond ring effect occurs. If you can see that diamond ring effective, you've done damage to your retina. So you still have to use extreme caution and know what you're doing if you're going to glance at totality.<br />
<br />
P: So Brian was right?<br />
<br />
S: Brian was right. He was right.<br />
<br />
P: I'd like to congratulate him for winning our "Are you actually listening" contenst.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. You picked up on it. He was the only one, so he gets the ...<br />
<br />
P: He was the only one. For that he gets a laurel and hardy handshake.<br />
<br />
S: He gets to download our podcast for free ...<br />
<br />
E: Woah!<br />
<br />
S: ... as much as he wants.<br />
<br />
R: Lucky dog.<br />
<br />
P: Good man.<br />
<br />
=== Big Bang and Conservation <small>(45:00)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Let's go on to the next e-mail. This is from "Frank the Skeptic". Frank has a few questions, which are all good, typical questions, so we wanted to address them. Frank writes,<br />
<blockquote>I discovered your podcast a couple of months ago and have listened to most of them. Thanks for the great shows. They are fabulous.</blockquote><br />
Well, thank you, Frank. Let me get on &mdash; he talks about some other things, but let me go on to his questions. He says,<br />
<blockquote>In the meantime, I'll propose some tidbits to stimulate debate amongst yourselves and give a chance to flex your big brains.</blockquote><br />
Yes, we always love the chance to flex our big brains.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Number one: The law of conservation of energy and matter says that energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed, but only changes form. Scientists believe the universe began with a {{w|Big Bang|Big Bang}}, which is essentially a theory that states that the universe exploded outward from an infinitesimally point at a specific point in history. If you assume that the universe is not oscillating, a point on which most cosmologists are now in agreement, then you must conclude that the universe was created out of nothing 14 billion years ago. Therefore, current scientific theory is an inconsistent belief set.</blockquote><br />
Well...<br />
<br />
B: Steve, I'll take this one.<br />
<br />
S: All right, Bob, you take the first shot. Go ahead.<br />
<br />
B: OK. He is correct that, essentially, it seems that it came from nothing, and it might seem like, well, how is that possible? How does that &mdash; doesn't that violate the law of conservation of energy? But it was created out of nothing. It really seems like it was created out of nothing, but {{w|Conservation of energy|energy conservation}} remains intact because we're still essentially nothing right now. This is because of two things, and it's kind of interesting that all the positive energy of the universe, like matter and antimatter and photons is exactly balanced by the negative energy of the universe, namely gravity. Therefore, the total net energy of the universe is zero. The universe is the biggest free lunch imaginable, and that's how you kinda get around that issue is that everything balances out, so the net energy of the universe is exactly zero. So there is no problem with conservation of energy.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. It's also &mdash; point out that when you're talking about cosmology, especially beyond the known universe, both temporally and physically, it's hard to know if the laws that we've described in the known universe hold true. We don't know if conservation laws hold true inside a black hole or at the singularity before the Big Bang. In fact, we don't know if it's really even meaningful to say "before the Big Bang". And in fact, some cosmologists have postulated that although the universe is temporally bound, meaning that it is finite in its life span, it did not always exist, that it may not have had a beginning. I'm not going to attempt to give you an explanation of why that is true. If you want to know about that, then read Stephen Hawking. But there didn't necessarily have to be a beginning to the universe in time, and therefore a "before the Big Bang".<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that makes sense to me because one problem I have with things happening before the Big Bang, when the Big Bang happened, it wasn't like a firecracker going off and an explosion.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: It's an expansion of space ''and time''. So before the Big Bang, space and time did not exist, so if time didn't exist, how could anything happen?<br />
<br />
S: Right. Exactly. So you can't really &mdash; it's not a meaningful question.<br />
<br />
B: Right. It is; it's meaningless.<br />
<br />
S: And saying, "where did the matter and energy of the universe come from?" is not a meaningful question either. We don't have ...<br />
<br />
B: Well, there's an answer for that.<br />
<br />
S: There kind of is, but we don't have a language really to even ask or answer that question.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: You know, is the bottom line.<br />
<br />
B: I agree. Yeah, I've read a little bit about this, and one guy was saying that, at astrosociety.org, was saying that all that would be required is just a tiny bit of energy to get the whole thing started, but that's ...<br />
<br />
S: Fluctuation.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, it's quantum fluctuations and things analogous to virtual particles, but I don't know where that would've come from, but it's interesting.<br />
<br />
S: But there's no violation of conservation of mass implied in the Big Bang is the bottom line there. I would also point out (this is a total tangent), but creationists have also liked to point out that the scientific model requires that there has been a decrease in the amount of energy in the universe because the universe began as a uniform cloud of hydrogen gas, and now we have people, and doesn't that represent a decrease in total entropy? The laws of thermodynamics say that entropy should be increasing with time. In other words, disorder. Actually, "disorder" is a very bad analogy to entropy. It's actually not correct. But that's sort of the misconception that they make. But the bottom line is, they argue that the increase in complexity of life and, in fact, matter that scientists and cosmologists propose happened violates thermodynamics because it represents a decrease in entropy when entropy should be increasing over time. Well, in fact, the modern cosmological model ''does'' represent an increase in entropy. Entropy is increasing over time, even given the evolution of life on Earth and the development of stars and planets, etc. Because when suns burn hydrogen to make helium, and then eventually heavier elements, they are dramatically increasing the entropy of the universe, and the evolution of life on Earth represents only a tiny reversal of that entropy. We're just recovering a little bit of that energy to carry on the processes of life, one of which is evolution. So, it kinda reminded me that it's similar. It's like entropy is increasing as time goes by, inevitably, and nothing that happens, or that scientists believe happens, or has happened over the last 14 billion years, violates that. So, the laws of the universe are still well in place.<br />
<br />
R: Thank God.<br />
<br />
=== Detecting Altered Photos <small>(50:38)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Question number two:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Can experts tell with 100% accuracy if a photo has been digitally altered? Can they tell with 100% accuracy if a photo has been doctored in any way? Everyone thinks they can spot a toupee, but it's only the bad ones they spot. The good ones aren't even noticed. Could you use this argument here?</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: That is a very good bit of logic. If your criteria for saying that something exists &mdash; you noticing it, then all you're really seeing are noticeable things. You can't rule out the un-noticeable phenomena with that criteria. But regarding photographs, the short answer is: yeah, pretty much. And the reason is that any technique you can use to alter a photograph, an expert can use that same technique to detect the alteration. As far as I know, and I have not been able to find any documentation that it's possible to alter a photograph significantly without leaving a tell-tale sign behind. You can do, for example, statistical analyses on the subtle shades or colors in a photo, and they should follow the laws of randomness and statistics, and any manipulation that you do to that photograph is going to leave a non-random signature behind, a statistical sort of signature behind. So, if you have the techniques to look at a photograph in that way, basically do a statistical analysis of the pixels, you can detect any manipulation, is the bottom line. But that doesn't apply to filters and things like that; I mean, you're talking about like cropping out a picture and moving it over or actually altering the content of the photo. There are also ways of detecting filters and things like that, but that's not as easy, but it's also doesn't affect the content of the photo. Just maybe the ways the colors look or how saturated they are or washed out, for example.<br />
<br />
=== Placebo Effect <small>(52:38)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Question number three:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Could the {{w|Placebo effect|placebo effect}} be evidence of a mind-body connection? From my understanding, a new drug need only to be proven slightly better than the placebo for it to be deemed useful. Given the proven and real effects of the placebo for a wide range of health problems, why don't doctors prescribe them? If New Agers call it spontaneous healing, the power of positive thinking or whatever, and skeptics call it the placebo effect, isn't it just a difference in labeling?</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Well, that is a very common misconception of the placebo effect. The placebo effect is, in fact, not evidence of any unusual mind-body connection, beyond the obvious, that the mind ''is'' the body, right? I mean, the mind is a phenomenon of the biological functioning of the brain. And there is a connection between the brain and other systems in the body. For example, there is a {{w|Neuroendocrine system|neuroendocrine system}}. The psychological stress releases hormones which can have physiological effects on your body, for example. So, beyond physiological connections between the brain and the rest of the body that are well established, there is no sort of spiritual mind-body connection implied by the placebo effect, nor is there any sort of mind-over-matter phenomenon implied by the placebo effect. What the placebo effect actually is is anything other than a physiological response to the intervention. In most cases, it's a pharmacological effect from a drug, for example. It's all other effects in a study. And the reason why we design studies that way is that we can take the physiological effect, subtract out all the other effects, i.e. the placebo, and then we can calculate what the effect of the drug itself is, if you basically control for all the other things. But it includes lots of variables; it includes the fact that when someone's in a study, they are paying more attention to their own health. When someone's in a study, they are more compliant with their medications. They're more likely to take their medications as they should, on schedule, because they think that they're under the microscope. There's a physician that's keeping close tabs on them, for example. They're just more mindful of their health. They're also getting more frequent exams by a physician. So, their health problems are not going to be potentially neglected.<br />
<br />
There may be endocrine benefits to a positive outlook; being hopeful, for example. So, there's lots of secondary effects to being in a study, to being observed. There may be secondary effects in terms of the mood and the outlook of the individual. And those all get rolled into the placebo effect. So even without any mind-over-body effect, there is still a sizable placebo effect. The reason why we don't prescribe placebos is because, well first of all, they're unethical to do that because it's deceptive. And second, because that much of an effect is not worth it. You know, you can get, or you should get a placebo effect just from having a positive therapeutic relationship with a patient, and for doing any intervention. Having no actual effect is not justifiable. You can't justify an intervention without any effect just because there's an intervention, just because there's a non-specific benefit to the therapeutic relationship itself. So we'll talk about that some more in later podcasts, because the idea of the placebo effect comes up quite a bit when dealing with health-related claims.<br />
<br />
E: Could do a whole episode just on just the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
S: We could. We could. It's very interesting. Well, that's all the time for e-mail this week. Let's move on to Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(56:31)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: So, every week I come up with three science news items or facts. Two of them are real, and one I make up. Then I will challenge my esteemed panel of skeptics to figure out which one is fake, and, of course, listeners are encouraged to play along. See if you can do better than our panel of skeptics.<br />
<br />
P: Unlikely!<br />
<br />
S: I don't know. I got all of you last week, if you recall. The theme for this week is: these are all presentations at this year's American Academy of Neurology meeting. So as I was walking up and down the aisles looking at posters, attending seminars, and presentations, I was keeping tabs on what would be good ones to present to you guys in Science or Fiction this week. The challenge was finding presentations that weren't so hopelessly obscure and technical that I could translate them into something meaningful to a non-neurologist, but I did manage to find a few. So are you guys ready?<br />
<br />
E: Yes.<br />
<br />
R: Of course. <br />
<br />
S: Okay, here we go. Item number one &mdash; again, two are real, one is fake. Item number one: "Effects Of Auditory Stimulation With Popular Music On Visual Motor Integration, Rapid Alternating Movement, And Gait In Parkinson's Disease". So I'm going to translate that for you and give you the bottom line.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I thought you were going to give us the dumbed-down version.<br />
<br />
S: That was the title of the paper, right?. The title of the paper.<br />
<br />
B: Could you say that one more time. Could you say the title one more time?<br />
<br />
S: Here's the title: "Effects of Auditory Stimulation with Popular Music on Visual Motor Integration, Rapid Alternating Movement, and Gait in Parkinson's Disease." Here's the bottom line: listening to pop music improves motor function in patients who have Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's diseases is a movement disorder. It's what Mohammed Ali has, and what ...<br />
<br />
E: Michael J. Fox.<br />
<br />
S: ... Michael J. Fox has, and also the former Attorney General under Clinton. What was her name? She was Attorney General ...<br />
<br />
E: Reno.<br />
<br />
B: Reno!<br />
<br />
S: Attorney General Janet Reno.<br />
<br />
P: Reno. Reno, Waco. Got it.<br />
<br />
S: So they're stiff and they shake and they can't walk. So listening to pop music improves their motor function. That was number one. Number two, number two, little easier: the title is "Does a Birthday Predispose To Stroke Transient Ischemic Attack And Myocardial Infarction?" Bottom line of this paper was: people are more likely to have strokes and heart attacks on their birthday.<br />
<br />
P: All right.<br />
<br />
S: Item number three: "Efficacy Of Environmental Color Manipulation On The Reduction Of Seizure Frequency And Primary Generalized Epilepsy." The bottom line of this paper was that people living in an environment that are colored towards the blue end of the color spectrum, like if your walls are colored blue, have fewer seizures than those living in an environment colored towards the red end of the spectrum. So if you have primary generalized epilepsy you want your walls to be blue, not red.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: There we go. Evan, why don't you hit it off.<br />
<br />
E: Very interesting. My father passed away in the year 2000, and he suffered a series of heart attacks leading up to his passing. He actually had one of those heart attack episodes on my sister's birthday, so I think you phrased the question that the strokes and heart attacks on their birthday, meaning the person who has it, right? But not on birthday parties or that sort of thing, in general. So I just found that interesting. So maybe that one I might say is false. The first one sounds very plausible: pop music helps patients with what was it, epilepsy? Not epilepsy ...<br />
<br />
S: Parkinson's disease.<br />
<br />
P: Parkinson.<br />
<br />
E: Parkinson's disease.<br />
<br />
S: A movement disorder, right.<br />
<br />
E: Movement disorder. I could see how that might bear some fruit, and I think the last one is correct, as well. People who are prone to seizures and so forth should have a blue environment instead of a red environment. Don't know, that one just seems to make almost common sense to me. So I'll say number two is the incorrect one.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: I'm actually going to agree, for all the same reasons. One and three sound very plausible. Not that number two doesn't, necessarily, but, yeah, I'm going to go with number two being the false one.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Perry?<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, it's obviously number two. Number two doesn't make any sense. I mean, what, are people getting drunk or something? I mean crazy parties.<br />
<br />
R: Well, now it makes sense. You have the parties and ...<br />
<br />
P: Driving themselves?<br />
<br />
R: ... you get a little excited.<br />
<br />
P: Madness and disease? I doubt it. First one, you know, is getting down with the groove to move around. That's obvious. The second one was practically on South Park. It was video games, colors, ...<br />
<br />
S: You mean number three.<br />
<br />
P: Number three, whatever. Don't get me confused. Yeah, two is clearly the correct answer.<br />
<br />
S: So, three votes that the birthday causing strokes and heart attacks is false.<br />
<br />
P: Of course. It's madness.<br />
<br />
S: And the other two are correct. Bob? Are you going to make it unanimous?<br />
<br />
B: Let's see, now. Steve, what kind of improvement was the music showing on motor function?<br />
<br />
S: That they had improvements in their ability to move quickly, especially in alternating fashion, that their walking improved, and they had better what's called visual motor integration. So basically hand-eye coordination.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but how temporary was it?<br />
<br />
P: Excuse me.<br />
<br />
R: This isn't twenty questions!<br />
<br />
S: It was during ...<br />
<br />
P: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
B: This is important.<br />
<br />
S: I'll clarify. It was during...<br />
<br />
B: Are you claiming that it was reversing Parkinson's, or are you saying ... <br />
<br />
S: No.<br />
<br />
B: ... it had a temporary effect.<br />
<br />
E: He said it helps.<br />
<br />
S: It was the effects of auditory stimulation, so it was while the music was playing in the background, they performed better on these tasks than while there wasn't music in the background.<br />
<br />
B: Okay. Well, that's definitely more plausible than changing the course of the disease.<br />
<br />
S: They did not reverse their disease in any way.<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: It was just while the music was playing.<br />
<br />
P: Did he say that it did?<br />
<br />
B: I just wanted to clarify that, Perry.<br />
<br />
S: I'll clarify that.<br />
<br />
B: I'll go back to my decision.<br />
<br />
P: I understand. I understand entirely.<br />
<br />
B: Okay. All right, the blue environment seems like, I mean we've all heard of visual stimulation can affect things like that. So that's plausible unless you reversed the blue and red on us. Something like that.<br />
<br />
E: What if people are color blind?<br />
<br />
S: Would I do that?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, right? The heart attack &mdash; the heart attack on the birthday doesn't seem completely crazy to me, either. I mean, you've got a lot of crazy stuff happening on your birthday. Surprise! You know, people jumping out.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
B: Right?<br />
<br />
R: What kind of scary-ass parties do you have?<br />
<br />
P: Really.<br />
<br />
S: You should see Bob's parties. They're frightening.<br />
<br />
B: Hey, if I'm going to have a heart attack, it will probably be on my birthday. Volleyball, frisbee, swimming, that's when I'll probably have a heart attack. Crap!<br />
<br />
P: I can hear all the 65-year-olds out there.<br />
<br />
S: So you like all of them. They're all good.<br />
<br />
B: Nothing's totally jumping out.<br />
<br />
S: So put your nickel down. Come on!<br />
<br />
B: All right. I'll go with two. I go with the pack.<br />
<br />
S: Make it unanimous. All right. Let's go to number one first. You all agree that listening to pop music will improve motor function in patients with movement disorder. That was an actual paper, and it showed, again, while if you have popular music playing in the background that these functions did improve, and it does kind of make sense that it is providing a stimulus, a rythmic sort of stimulus, and patients with Parkinson's disease, in particular, have difficulty initiating movement. So that auditory stimulus may also get them over their hesitation, their inability to initiate their movement. So that one was true. Let's go to number three: efficacy of environmental color manipulation on the reduction of seizure frequency. Basically, fewer seizures if you're surrounded by blue than if you're surrounded by red. That one is completely fiction. I made that one up out of whole cloth.<br />
<br />
R: Aaaaahhhhh.<br />
<br />
E: Wooooowwwwww.<br />
<br />
S: Now, yes, there is some plausibility to it in that certain visual stimulation can provoke seizures, but not color. And what kind of visual stimulation can do that is like a strobe effect definitely does that. They can drive certain neurons in the brain and cause them to fire synchronously, even in normal people, and if you have epilepsy, it can drive your seizures. But there's no color effect on that. I just made it up.<br />
<br />
R: I call shenagins. I think he stumbled across something that's true.<br />
<br />
E: Can I change my answer?<br />
<br />
P: Exactly, exactly.<br />
<br />
S: Now number two, that was absolutely true. This is a paper that was presented the other day. Does a birthday predispose to stroke transient ischemic attack, which is a brief, reversible stroke, and myocardial infarction? So what they showed was that there was a 27% increase in the risk of having any of these events on your birthday.<br />
<br />
P: Why?<br />
<br />
S: And it correlated well to having an increased blood pressure. So just the stress of the whole birthday event increases people's blood pressure, and that increases their risk for heart attacks and strokes. There was ...<br />
<br />
P: So did they have even a higher risk on Thanksgiving?<br />
<br />
S: There is a generic holiday effect, and they also did talk about other people's birthdays, and their risk was higher on other people's birthdays, as well. But one's own birthday had the most measurable effect. So, beware of your birthday and of holidays.<br />
<br />
B: So, basically, don't skip your blood pressure medicine on your birthday.<br />
<br />
S: Especially don't skip your blood pressure medicine on your birthday, that's right.<br />
<br />
R: And don't go paragliding.<br />
<br />
P: It's crazy talk.<br />
<br />
R: Bungee-jumping.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
P: Crazy talk.<br />
<br />
S: Well, guys, this was fun, but we're out of time.<br />
<br />
P: Crazy talk.<br />
<br />
B: Oooohhhhh.<br />
<br />
E: Stumped us all.<br />
<br />
S: We did. Two weeks in a row. I got you all two weeks in a row.<br />
<br />
R: I still say there's some truth to it. You just didn't realize it. I'm going to Google it as soon as we're done here.<br />
<br />
S: Go ahead. Keep in mind the theme was these were papers presented at the AAN this week.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, I don't care.<br />
<br />
S: There was no paper presented on color this week.<br />
<br />
R: You're not going to get off on a technicality.<br />
<br />
S: But, hey, Rebecca, go for it. If you can find paper showing that you have fewer seizures in blue rooms, go right ahead.<br />
<br />
R: Okay, I will.<br />
<br />
S: and ...<br />
<br />
P: We're going to teach these neurologists what 'fer.<br />
<br />
R: That's right. If I don't find one, I'll write one.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
E: Exactly. There you go.<br />
<br />
S: Well, thanks guys for joining us. It's always a pleasure.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you.<br />
<br />
B: Have fun on the West Coast, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: I will. I'll have fun. I'll enjoy the rest of my conference. I'm going to the San Diego Zoo tomorrow.<br />
<br />
B: Cool!<br />
<br />
S: The San Diego Zoo is a world-class zoo. We're going to take the girls there.<br />
<br />
B: I think I'd love it.<br />
<br />
E: Just make sure you take them out when you're done. <br />
<br />
S: Well, all right. Until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro30}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_37&diff=9825SGU Episode 372015-04-13T22:56:31Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
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{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 37<br />
|episodeDate = April 6<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Noahanimals.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast04-06-06.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Fish Evolution <small>(3:34)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Prayer in Medicine <small>(14:13)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>(24:07)</small>==<br />
Well, let's move on to your e-mail. We did get a usual crop of e-mail&mdash;actually, we get an increasing number of e-mail every week, so thanks for sending them in. We're going to talk about a few this week.<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>(24:18)</small>===<br />
The first one is from Keith Bentrip, who writes:<br />
<blockquote>Hi guys,<br />
I love your show. I've listened to every one by now. I have a couple of thoughts about the Noah's Ark segment from 3/22. I couldn't verify the comment about two of each predator and seven of the rest, although I did find references to seven of the clean and two of the unclean.</blockquote><br />
Actually, I think it was&mdash;I looked it up myself; it was two of the clean and seven of the unclean, I believe. But that's what I was referring to, and in other translations it was seven of the domesticated animals. So there would've been seven cows and seven sheep and seven pigs. But only two lions and two tigers and two giraffes.<br />
<blockquote>Also, would any of you</blockquote><br />
Oh, he wrote "would" twice.<br />
<blockquote>Would any of you care to hypothesize just how big the Ark would have to be to house two of each species today? How much food would they have to carry for the duration; how much is the minimal amount of space they would need, etc.? It'd be an interesting thought experiment. Also, any insight into the geological evidence that we would expect to find for a mass extinction of that size? It would be interesting to hear some off-the-cuff remarks. Or if you know some on-line resources that already does this, I'd be grateful if you could point that out.</blockquote><br />
<br />
So... well, Keith, there are on-line reviews of that very question on [http://talkorigins.org talkorigins], and we'll have that [http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html link] on our Notes page, of course. And in the [http://www.skepdic.com Skeptic's Dictionary] were [http://www.skepdic.com/noahsark.html two that I quickly found]. They go through calculations as to how many species&mdash;how many individuals animals would've been on the Ark. There are, by the way, ten million species that have been identified. There are more&mdash;the number would be higher 'cause there are some that are not identified. But if you eliminate all of the swimming animals, you know, that wouldn't have to go on the Ark, it's a lot less. Even if you just count, like you know, birds and reptiles and mammals and amphibians, it's still tens of thousands of species, so tremendous, tremendous number of individual animals would've had to have been on the Ark. The Ark was not big enough, frankly, to hold all those animals.<br />
<br />
R: Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah?<br />
<br />
R: Steve, sorry. Are you sure it's ten million identified species? I thought we were only at, like, two million, but we assume that we could go up to ten.<br />
<br />
S: Actually, you are correct. The total number of ''named'' species is right now around 1.7, 1.8 million. The ten million figure is an average estimate for the total number of species in the world. Estimates range from about 5 to 20 million, although some people advocate a much higher number. Even if you take an average estimate, it's about ten million, which is, of course a more relevant figure for the Noah's Ark question, rather than the number that we've just happened to name by this point in time.<br />
<br />
R: OK. Wow.<br />
<br />
P: That's a lot of species.<br />
<br />
S: It's a lot. But even if you... even a much smaller number would be far too&mdash;although most of those are insects. In fact, most of those are beetles.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But even if you eliminate all of those, it's still quite a few... quite a few species. Also there's a problem with feeding them. They all have different kinds of food&mdash;you know, where would the pandas have gotten the bamboo shoots, etc. What did all the carnivores eat? They would've had to eat the other animals, right?<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Not to mention excrement. Hello!<br />
<br />
S: Well, yeah, they would've had to have a massive effort just to keep the ship from sinking under its own weight in excrement.<br />
<br />
R: Well, you know, actually, I crunched a few numbers on that, if you want to hear some of them.<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
R: It's kind of funny. I found out that the volume of the Ark was about 45,000 cubic meters. And if you only considered a million animal species going onto the Ark, that would leave about 5% of one cubic meter per animal. And to kind of compare that, a human takes up about 20% of a cubic meter. So, for just a million animals, you'd basically be packed in there like a clown car, basically.<br />
<br />
S: A million animals averaging in size, like, a rabbit or something.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Or maybe a small dog.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah... instead of like, clowns, it's sort of like a tiger, you know? ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
E: Fold them up. Fold them up neat.<br />
<br />
R: You'd have to be, yeah, really comfortable with other species. And so, that's just space-wise. If you looked at weight, I found a source that said that the Ark could probably hold about 50 million kilograms. And I found another source that said... that gave an average weight of an animal; they guessed about a horse, about 450 kilograms. This is very un-scientific, but that's the best I could find. And if you only went with 1.5 million species, that would end up at 675 million kilograms. So to hold all of the species, if you just went with 1 and a half million species, the Ark would've had to have been about 13 times larger than what the Bible says it was.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: It would have to have been about 6,000 feet long, 1,000 feet wide by 600 feet tall.<br />
<br />
E: Can you express that in cubits, please?<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
R: Um, no. ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
P: Ye of little faith. Remember the mysterious ways back in the other segment? Same thing here. Mysterious ways.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
R: To contrast it, the largest ship in the world that's currently being constructed is about three quarters of that size. That the Ark would have needed to be. And that ship hasn't even&mdash;that's still in the conceptual stage. They might not even be able to make it.<br />
<br />
E: I hope we're building it.<br />
<br />
P: Perhaps God dehydrated and they were in powdered form.<br />
<br />
R: That's a good point, actually.<br />
<br />
E: Freeze-dried. Just add water.<br />
<br />
R: Just little jars of animals.<br />
<br />
P: You don't know. You don't know!<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
R: Where's your science now?<br />
<br />
S: In terms of geological evidence, I mean, there is no evidence of a worldwide flood ten thousand or whatever years ago. And the other thing is, even if you could somehow get all those animals onto the Ark, survive the flood, release them, you still have a huge problem of... that's not enough time for all of the genetic diversity to re-establish itself. You know, if you have only two, a male and female of a species, the probability that that species will even survive is pretty low; it's less than 50-50.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah; Steve, you can't produce a viable community of animals with just two. It's impossible!<br />
<br />
S: It's not impossible, Bob. It's not impossible. It's very difficult.<br />
<br />
B: Two? Starting with two?<br />
<br />
R: Adam and Eve did it.<br />
<br />
S: You'd have to get very lucky. It is theoretically possible with just two species ''[sic]'', but you have&mdash;the big problem is that you have so little genetic diversity. And if they happen to have&mdash;match up a lot of recessive genes for bad things, they're not going to survive. And of course, their children would have to be consanguineous, and... that's where you get into the problems. It depends on how different the two individuals to start with and how many recessive genes there are for genetic disorders, etc. But it's a long shot. It's a long shot. In fact&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: It's a long shot for one species, I guess.<br />
<br />
S: For each species. That would be for every single species.<br />
<br />
B: Right. Multiply that by all those species and you're talking...<br />
<br />
S: And once the lions started eating the zebras, I mean, they would be... you know, they would be gone. What did they eat? It would take multiple, multiple generations to re-establish a herd. So it's completely, completely implausible. What I was going to say was that the... it is estimated that in order to have a stable breeding population, you need about 2,000 individuals.<br />
<br />
B: Right, that's what I heard.<br />
<br />
S: Two is tough. Not impossible, but very, very tough. So, we'll have a couple of links on our website, but that's the nuts and bolts for you.<br />
<br />
P: The whole thing is bananas.<br />
<br />
S: Basically.<br />
<br />
R: Scientifically speaking, yes.<br />
<br />
S: Don't get technical on us, Perry.<br />
<br />
P: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
E: Speaking of bananas...<br />
=== EVP <small>(32:07)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== More on the Solar Eclipse <small>(41:54)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Frank's Questions <small>(44:32)</small>===<br />
S: Let's do... let's go on to the next e-mail. This is from "Frank the Skeptic". Frank has a few questions, which are all good, typical questions, so we wanted to address them. Frank writes,<br />
<blockquote>I discovered your podcast a couple of months ago and have listened to most of them. Thanks for the great shows. They are fabulous.</blockquote><br />
Well, thank you, Frank. Let me get on&mdash;he talks about some other things, but let me go on to his questions. He says,<br />
<blockquote>In the meantime, I'll propose some tidbits to stimulate debate amongst yourselves and give a chance to flex your big brains.</blockquote><br />
Yes, we always love the chance to flex our big brains.<br />
<br />
==== Big Bang and Conservation <small>(45:00)</small>====<br />
<blockquote>Number one: The law of conservation of energy and matter says that energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed, but only changes form. Scientists believe the universe began with a {{w|Big Bang|Big Bang}}, which is essentially a theory that states that the universe exploded outward from an infinitesimally point at a specific point in history. If you assume that the universe is not oscillating, a point on which most cosmologists are now in agreement, then you must conclude that the universe was created out of nothing 14 billion years ago. Therefore, current scientific theory is an inconsistent belief set.</blockquote><br />
Well...<br />
<br />
B: Steve, I'll take this one.<br />
<br />
S: All right, Bob, you take the first shot. Go ahead.<br />
<br />
B: OK. Uh... he is correct that, essentially, it seems that it came from nothing, and it might seem like, well, how is that possible? How does that&mdash;doesn't that violate the law of conservation of energy? But... it was created out of nothing&mdash;it really seems like it was created out of nothing, but {{w|Conservation of energy|energy conservation}} remains intact because we're still essentially nothing right now. This is because of two things, and it's kind of interesting that all the positive energy of the universe, like matter and antimatter and photons is exactly balanced by the negative energy of the universe, namely gravity. Therefore, the total net energy of the universe is zero. The universe is the biggest free lunch [imaginable], and that's how you kinda get around that issue is that everything balances out so the net energy of the universe is exactly zero. So there is no problem with conservation of energy.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. It's also... point out that when you're talking about cosmology, especially beyond the known universe, both temporally and physically, it's hard to know if the laws that we've come&mdash;that we've described in the known universe hold true. We don't know if conservation laws hold true inside a black hole or at the singularity before the Big Bang. In fact, we don't know if it's really even meaningful to say "before the Big Bang". And in fact, some cosmologists have postulated that although the universe is temporally bound, meaning that it is finite in its life span&mdash;it did not always exist&mdash;that it may not have had a beginning. I'm not going to attempt to give you an explanation of why that is true. If you want to know about that, then read {{w|Stephen Hawking|Stephen Hawkings}} ''[sic]''. But there didn't necessarily have to be a beginning to the universe in time, and therefore a "before the Big Bang".<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that makes sense to me because one problem I have with things happening before the Big Bang&mdash;the universe&mdash;when the Big Bang happened, it wasn't like a firecracker going off and... an explosion.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: It's an expansion of space ''and time''. So before the Big Bang, space and time did not exist, so if time didn't exist, how could anything happen?<br />
<br />
S: Right. Exactly. So you can't really&mdash;it's not a meaningful question.<br />
<br />
B: Right. It is; it's meaningless.<br />
<br />
S: And saying, "where did the matter and energy of the universe come from?" is not a meaningful question either. We don't have&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Well, there's an answer for that.<br />
<br />
S: There kind of is, but we really don't&mdash;we don't have a language really to even ask or answer that question.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: You know, is the bottom line.<br />
<br />
B: I agree. Yeah... I've read a little bit about this, and there's... one guy was saying that, at astrosociety.org, was saying that all that would be required is just a tiny bit of energy to get the whole thing started, and... but that's...<br />
<br />
S: Fluctuation.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, it's quantum fluctuations and things analogous to virtual particles, but it's... I don't know where that would've come from, but it's interesting.<br />
<br />
S: But there's no violation of conservation of mass implied in the Big Bang is the bottom line there. I would also point out&mdash;this is a total tangent, but creationists have also liked to point out that the scientific model requires that there has been a decrease in the amount of energy in the universe because the universe began as a uniform cloud of hydrogen gas, and now we have people, and doesn't that represent a decrease in total entropy? The laws of thermodynamics say that entropy should be increasing with time. In other words, disorder... actually, "disorder"'s a very bad analogy to entropy; it's actually not correct. But that's sort of the misconception that they make. But the bottom line is, they argue that the increase in complexity of life and, in fact, matter that scientists and cosmologists propose happened violates thermodynamics because it represents a decrease in entropy when entropy should be increasing over time. Well, in fact, the modern cosmological model ''does'' represent an increase in entropy. Entropy is increasing over time, even given the evolution of life on Earth and the development of stars and planets, etc. Because when suns burn hydrogen to make helium, and then eventually heavier elements, they are dramatically increasing the entropy of the universe, and the evolution of life on Earth represents only a tiny reversal of that entropy. We're just recovering a little bit of that energy to carry on the processes of life, one of which is evolution. So, it kinda reminded me that it's similar; it's like, entropy is increasing as time goes by, inevitably, and nothing that happens, or that scientists believe happens, or has happened over the last 14 billion years, violates that. So, the laws of the universe are still well in place.<br />
<br />
==== Detecting Altered Photos <small>(50:38)</small>====<br />
<blockquote>Question number two: Can experts tell with 100% accuracy if a photo has been digitally altered? Can they tell with 100% accuracy if a photo has been doctored in any way? Everyone thinks they can spot a toupee, but it's only the bad ones they spot; the good ones aren't even noticed. Could you use this argument here?</blockquote><br />
S: That is a very good bit of logic. If your criteria for saying that something exists&mdash;you noticing it, then all you're really seeing are noticeable things. You can't rule out the un-noticeable phenomena with that criteria. But regarding photographs... the short answer is: yeah, pretty much. And the reason is that any technique you can use to alter a photograph, an expert can use that same technique to detect the alteration. As far as I know, and I have not been able to find any documentation that it's possible to alter a photograph significantly without leaving a tell-tale sign behind. You can do, for example, statistical analyses on the subtle shades or colors in a photo, and they should follow the laws of randomness and statistics, and any manipulation that you do to that photograph is going to leave a non-random signature behind, a statistical sort of signature behind. So, if you have the techniques to look at a photograph in that way, basically do a statistical analysis of the pixels, you can detect any manipulation, is the bottom line. But that doesn't apply to filters and things like that; I mean, you're talking about like cropping out a picture and moving it over or actually altering the content of the photo. There are also ways detecting filters and things like that, but that's not as easy, but it's also not&mdash;doesn't affect the content of the photo. Just maybe the ways the colors look or how saturated they are or washed out, for example.<br />
<br />
==== Placebo Effect <small>(52:38)</small>====<br />
<blockquote>Question number three: Could the {{w|Placebo effect|placebo effect}} be evidence of a mind-body connection? From my understanding, a new drug need only to be proven slightly better than the placebo for it to be deemed useful. Given the proven and real effects of the placebo for a wide range of health problems, why don't doctors prescribe them? If New Agers call it spontaneous healing, the power of positive thinking or whatever, and skeptics call it the placebo effect, isn't it just a difference in labeling?</blockquote><br />
S: Well, that is a very common misconception of the placebo effect. The placebo effect is, in fact, not evidence of any unusual mind-body connection, beyond the obvious, that the mind ''is'' the body, right? I mean, the mind is a phenomenon of the biological functioning of the brain. And there is a connection between the brain and other systems in the body. For example, there is a {{w|Neuroendocrine system|neuroendocrine system}}. The&mdash;psychological stress releases hormones which can have physiological effects on your body, for example. So, beyond physiological connections between the brain and the rest of the body that are well established, there is no sort of spiritual mind-body connection implied by the placebo effect, nor is there any sort of mind-over-matter phenomenon implied by the placebo effect. What the placebo effect actually is is anything other than a physiological response to the intervention. In most cases, it's a pharmacological effect from a drug, for example. It's everything&mdash;it's all other effects in a study. And the reason why we design studies that way is that we can take the physiological effect, subtract out all the other effects, i.e. the placebo, and then we can calculate what the effect of the drug itself is, if you basically control for all the other things. But it includes lots of variables; it includes the fact that when someone's in a study, they are paying more attention to their own health. When someone's in a study, they are more compliant with their medications; they're more likely to take their medications as they should, on schedule, 'cause they think that they're under the microscope; there's a physician that's keeping close tabs on them, for example. They're just more mindful of their health. They're also getting more frequent exams by a physician. So, they're not... their health problems are not going to be potentially neglected.<br />
<br />
There may be endocrine benefits to a positive outlook; being hopeful, for example. So, there's lots of secondary effects to being in a study, to being observed. There may be secondary effects in terms of the mood and the outlook of the individual. And those all get rolled into the placebo effect. So even without any mind-over-body effect, there is still a sizable placebo effect. The reason why we don't prescribe placebos is because, well first of all, they're unethical to do that because it's deceptive. And second, because that much of an effect is not worth it. You know, you can get&mdash;or you should get a placebo effect just from having a positive therapeutic relationship with a patient, and for doing any intervention. Having no actual effect is... not justifiable. You can't justify an intervention without any effect just because there's an intervention. Just because there's a non-specific benefit to the therapeutic relationship itself. So we'll talk about that some more in later podcasts, 'cause the idea of the placebo effect comes up quite a bit when dealing with health-related claims.<br />
<br />
E: Could do a whole episode just on just the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
S: We could. We could. It's very interesting. Well, that's all the time for e-mail this week. Let's move on to Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(56:30)</small>==<br />
<br />
{{Outro30}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9824Template:SGU episode list2015-04-13T22:56:17Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 36 as transcribed; 37 as transcription in-progress</p>
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<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 509]], Apr 11 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{i}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_36&diff=9823SGU Episode 362015-04-13T22:48:30Z<p>Jim Gibson: Complete transcription</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 36<br />
|episodeDate = March 29<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:PlaceholderSGU.png<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|guest1 = RR: Rick Ross<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast03-29-06.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, March 29, 2006. This is your host, Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me tonight are Bob Novella ...<br />
<br />
B: Hello, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Perry DeAngelis ...<br />
<br />
P: Out like a lamb.<br />
<br />
S: ... Jay Novella ...<br />
<br />
J: Hi, all.<br />
<br />
S: ... and we have a new addition to our panel of skeptics: Rebecca Watson. Rebecca, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
P: Yaaaaayyyyy!<br />
<br />
R: Thanks. Hi, everybody.<br />
<br />
B: Welcome.<br />
<br />
R: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca was on our episode &mdash; a few episodes ago was on our show, and we thought she was bright and witty and lent a good addition to the team, so we asked her to join us, and she agreed to.<br />
<br />
R: I did.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca is the Skepchick. She runs skepchick.org, publisher of the SkepChic Calendar.<br />
<br />
B: She writes a great blog. I recommend it to everybody.<br />
<br />
S: A great blog.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you, very much.<br />
<br />
S: We are happy to have you aboard.<br />
<br />
R: Thank you. I'm very happy to be here.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Solar Eclipse <small>(1:21)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Today, as many of you probably know, there was a total solar eclipse. It passed from Brazil heading northeast through Mongolia was the path that it took. It did not cross the United States, but there was crowds gathering along that path throughout the day to look at the solar eclipse, although, of course, not directly. Do you guys know, by the way, why you can't look directly at a solar eclipse?<br />
<br />
J: That's how the aliens beam their information to us, isn't it?<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: Because of the corona, right Steve? <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so the moon does not quite entirely cover the Sun. There's a little sliver of Sun left even at total eclipse, and, of course, as the moon's crossing, there's just the little crescent of the Sun that showing. What happens is &mdash; now normally, if there's too bright a light on your retina, it causes pain, and you will blink and turn away because of that pain. But when there's just a sliver of Sun showing, it's not enough to give you a pain reaction, but it still's enough to carve out a little crescent from your retina. So as your eyes are moving around, your just slicing up little bits of your retina, but never enough at any one time for you to cause pain for you to blink and turn away.<br />
<br />
B: Cool!<br />
<br />
P: So everything you looked at would have a crescent shadow in it from then forward?<br />
<br />
S: Basically, although what happens is that people &mdash; they don't just carve out one crescent from their retinas, ...<br />
<br />
B: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ... they carve out hundreds of crescents from their retinas and they ...<br />
<br />
P: Ah.<br />
<br />
S: ... they fry them.<br />
<br />
B: Plus, when you look at something, your eye isn't perfectly steady, in order so that you could actually see things, because your eye becomes, as you looking at something, because of the visual processing, the photoreceptors become immune to the stimulus. So your eye is constantly moving just a little bit all the time in order to refresh those photoreceptors. So that's probably an effect, as well, where your eyes are moving all the time.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, how long would it take to do damage?<br />
<br />
S: Not long. Even just a few seconds will start to cause some damage. And, of course, the longer you look, the more of your retina you'll burn out. But most people know that by now, that you can't look at the eclipse.<br />
<br />
B: Do you guys realize how lucky we are that we live in a time where our satellite, our only satellite just happens to almost exactly cover up our star. Think about it. There's probably not too many planets around that actually do that. And it's not going to stay that way forever, because the moon is receding from us, so eventually it won't cover the Sun at all.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. In the past, it entirely covered up the sun, and in the future it will cover up less and less of the disk of the sun.<br />
<br />
P: What are we talking two or three years?<br />
<br />
B: No.<br />
<br />
S: Hundreds of millions of years. It's interesting that you bring that up, Bob, because a lot of fundamentalists believe that the near exact correlation in ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... the angular size of the moon and the sun is a sign of the divine creation. That this is not just a cosmic coincidence, that ...<br />
<br />
B: Ah.<br />
<br />
S: ... it is in fact a sign of creation.<br />
<br />
J: Another amazing coincidence, though, is the fact that they're both exactly round, too.<br />
<br />
S: Right. I mean, what are the odds?<br />
<br />
P: How so. It's a sign of divine creation because?<br />
<br />
S: It's a coincidence, that's why.<br />
<br />
B: There you go.<br />
<br />
B: So, Steve ...<br />
<br />
S: That's it.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, boy.<br />
<br />
B: What are our anscestors going to think when it doesn't quite cover it.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, please.<br />
<br />
S: Who cares?<br />
<br />
P: They'll just rewrite like the Mormons are rewriting now.<br />
<br />
J: The same thing the Heaven's Gate people are thinking right now.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
P: They'll just rewrite.<br />
<br />
S: They'll probably say it was perfect at the day of creation and then changed from that point forward. Who knows?<br />
<br />
P: Sin beat it up or something.<br />
<br />
R: I would say science is just screwing it all up.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, science.<br />
<br />
P: That's it. That's it. Sin, science, whatever you want.<br />
<br />
B: Did you guys know that eventually the moon is going to continue to recede, and eventually, the Earth-Moon system's going to be tidally locked, and both the Earth and the Moon will have one side facing each other and just like rotate around each other.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: So half of the Earth is never going to see the Moon.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: Never again.<br />
<br />
P: That is terrible.<br />
<br />
R: That's kind of sad. You know, I heard another interesting eclipse factoid. Did you know that you shouldn't drink milk after the eclipse because it will all spoil.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God. Yeah, I think I heard that.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
R: I think in India, the newspaper was reporting all sorts of random factoids like that &mdash; weird things about pregnancies and lots of superstitions that surround eclipses.<br />
<br />
P: Lunacy, of course.<br />
<br />
B: Ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
R: Of coures.<br />
<br />
S: There's a lot of superstition surrounding visible astronomical events, because ..<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... it's just correlation. An eclipse happens, and then in some undefined period following the eclipse, something bad happens, and it becomes associated with the eclipse. Same thing is true of the appearance of comets. There's bound to be a war or a plague or a famine or something within a few years after a comet appearing, so they become the harbingers of disasters. That's actually where that word came from. It means "evil star," and it's actually a reference to comets.<br />
<br />
P: Well, if you think about it, an eclipse is a very scary thing to people who don't know what it is.<br />
<br />
B: My God, yeah.<br />
<br />
J: It would be mind-blowing to see an object cover the sun out of cycle like that.<br />
<br />
S: Right. It certainly seems like a heavenly event.<br />
<br />
P: As I recall, it's how Commander McBragg escaped from the pygmies.<br />
<br />
B: Ha, ha.<br />
<br />
P: Remember that? He held a lighter above his head and he ran out of the jungle.<br />
<br />
B: Nice! Very nice.<br />
<br />
S: He was also the Connecticut Yankee in Walla Walla, Washington. <br />
<br />
R: See, so eclipses have saved numerous lives.<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely!<br />
<br />
B: Many cartoon characters.<br />
<br />
=== Lewis, The Killer Cat <small>(7:28)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now Perry, I heard a report today. You live in Fairfield, Connecticut, right?<br />
<br />
P: You going to talk about the crazy cat?<br />
<br />
S: Apparently, there's this crazed cat that is terrorizing the citizens of Fairfield County. Now, have you run afoul of this ferocious feline?<br />
<br />
R: Perry, are you terrorized?<br />
<br />
P: Not Fairfield County, Fairfield, the town of Fairfield.<br />
<br />
S: The town of Fairfield! Even more specific.<br />
<br />
P: His name is Lewis, and he apparently is a psycho cat. He has mauled people to the extent that they've had to go to some walk-in medical facility. One woman said she was bitten three times. The Avon lady was mauled. The Post-person was mauled. It's very ugly, and I believe there was some judicial action taken, wasn't there, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: They didn't put the pussy down. They just sort of put her under house arrest?<br />
<br />
P: They did. They did. They put him under house arrest for a certain time. Now I did see a brief, and I mean brief, like 10 second interview with the owner, and she said "Wow" ...<br />
<br />
S: Crazy cat lady?<br />
<br />
J: "He's the sweetest cat. He would never hurt anybody."<br />
<br />
P: She. She said that people didn't treat Lewis right. They sprayed him with hoses and they kicked him and so forth. Of course I suppose that if the cat was mauling me I might ...<br />
<br />
R: Obviously, Lewis is just misunderstand.<br />
<br />
P: He may well be. Maybe we need an animal shrink in here. It's a situation (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
R: You should get the pet psychic to come in and talk to Lewis. I'm sure that would make really good television.<br />
<br />
S: "He's very angry at the way people have been treating him." A cold reading on a cat.<br />
<br />
J: Did this article get national attention?<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
P: It has gotten national television coverage, Jay.<br />
<br />
P: We have people dying in Iraq, and there's news coverage about a cat swiping at a few people as they walk by?<br />
<br />
B: Jay, people need there fluff.<br />
<br />
S: They need their "fluffy," apparently, too.<br />
<br />
B: Hah!<br />
<br />
=== Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica <small>(9:30)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: All right. One follow-up piece from before. I think we mentioned the fact that the Wikipedia, which is the online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to, was in a Nature article. They compared 50 science entries in Wikipedia to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and they found that the number of errors was roughly equivalent. There were about the same number of errors in those entries. There was a few more in the Wikipedia, but not too many more. Well now the Encyclopaedia Britannica is firing back. They have criticized the Nature article as "containing a pattern of sloppiness, indifference to basic scholarly standards, and flagrant errors so numerous that completely invalidated the results." Nature, however, says "we reject those accusations and are confident our comparisons are fair." So they're standing by their original article. Encyclopedia Britannica and the journal Nature, of course which is one of the most prestigious science journals in the world, are fighting over the accuracy of the comparison between Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Have you guys ever contributed to the Wikipedia, by the way?<br />
<br />
B: No.<br />
<br />
P: No, I haven't contributed to it. It certainly comes up more and more frequently on my searches, though.<br />
<br />
R: I've actually made one contribution to Wikipedia, and that was because somebody sent me a link to my own entry. It was an entry that somebody put in for SkepChicks, and they actually &mdash; I think they called my calendar lewd, and so I edited out that word.<br />
<br />
B: Ha, ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
P: Really.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. It might not have been "lewd." It was otherwise a complimentary little article, but there was one word in it that I didn't like, so I went in and edited it out.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: I started trolling it for skeptical entries as well as neurological ones, and you know what? Most of them are pretty good. I was actually fairly impressed by the content ...<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: ... in there. There was some that actually linked back to some articles that we had on our website.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I mad sure they were updated and they all worked and everything, but I've actually been quite impressed. I've updated a few when I come across them. One of the points in the Nature article was to implore scientists to spend some time in their area of narrow specialty to review the entries and to make them as high quality as possible, because the Wikipedia is only as good as people make it. But, apparently people who know what they're talking about and who care to take the time are putting in fairly decent entries. It's interesting.<br />
<br />
R: There's also a specific skeptic wiki that's been growing. It's not very big right now, but people are contributing to that. I think it's going to be a pretty decent resource when it's grown a bit. if you just ...<br />
<br />
S: That sounds great. What's the name of that?<br />
<br />
R: If you Google &mdash; okay, I'm looking it up now. It's just skepticwiki.org.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, we'll put it on our notes page.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I'll have to check that out. Maybe we should start building that. Definitely, because we have a skeptical encyclopedia on our site. Some other groups have that. There of course is the Skeptic's Dictionary, but there is a community of skeptics, and a lot of duplicated effort, and something like that would be a very great resource and would make a lot of sense for us to pool all of our resources into one common resource.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. So we can stop reinventing the wheel every time.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Right. Exactly, exactly. We also need, and maybe this could be a venue for that, we need a location where you could find resources, and I mean references. References. For example, oftentimes when I'm writing an article, I know there was some study some time that looked at the connection between like the lunar cycle and ER admissions, but I hate having to hunt down references like that every time I need them. Except I try to keep my own library, but sometimes I don't have everything in it. It would be great to have one location for all skeptical references.<br />
<br />
R: Right.<br />
<br />
S: It would be such a boon for the mainstream media, as well as skeptical writers, to back up what you're saying, so you're not just talking off the cuff.<br />
<br />
J: Hey Steve, do you think Encyclopaedia Britannica has taken a major hit due to Wikipedia?<br />
<br />
S: I think so. I think probably their response is an indication of that. The Encyclopedia Britannica has an online version, as well, but they charge for it, whereas the Wikipedia is free. So, if you had a service that you charged hundreds of dollars for, and it was compared to a free service, and they said basically there was no significant difference, that would be a major marketing concern.<br />
<br />
P: It sure would.<br />
<br />
J: Because I would think the Internet alone would serve a major hit to Britannica just for the sheer fact that people turn to the Internet before they turned anything else nowadays.<br />
<br />
S: Sure.<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: For the print version. Who would have a bookshelf filled with static old books when you can get dynamic updated information on the Internet?<br />
<br />
P: It is. It's totally outdated now.<br />
<br />
S: It's going to become obsolete.<br />
<br />
P: When I was a kid, that's all there was. <br />
<br />
J: Yeah, thats what we had.<br />
<br />
P: That's it.<br />
<br />
J: I gotta tell you, do you know haw many book reports I wrote out of the Encyclopedia Britannica?<br />
<br />
P: I bet you teachers in that era got the same report over and over and over.<br />
<br />
=== The Woman who Never Forgets <small>(15:02)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Now, Rebecca, on your blog, just to change gears a little bit, you talked about a woman who never forgets. Why don't you tell us about that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think at University of California they are researching this woman who has a perfect memory. Literally, you ask her what happened on October 3, 1986, and she'll tell you what day of the week it was, what was in the news. She'll tell you what she had for breakfast. She literally has perfect memory, and so they're trying to figure out ...<br />
<br />
P: In the span of her own lifetime?<br />
<br />
R: It's actually even beyond that. Just things she picks up, things she reads, she apparently just keeps it all in her memory. I think they quizzed her on things that happened before her time, and, yeah, if she had heard of it, then she nailed it.<br />
<br />
J: I'd want to know if it's debilitating.<br />
<br />
R: Well that's the interesting thing is that apparently she gets along all right. She's not like the idiot savant sorts that you hear about who &mdash; they can tell you every detail of say their favorite baseball team, but they can't work a blender.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: This woman has general knowledge of everything, but she seems to get along okay in life.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, was it like a photographic memory, or did they describe it that way?<br />
<br />
R: They didn't really go into detail into exactly what she's remembering and how she's doing it. They haven't really gotten very far. They've been doing these exhaustive tests on her, and just coming up with nothing, so far.<br />
<br />
P: Is she like the national Trivial Pursuit champion?<br />
<br />
R: Ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
P: I would think so.<br />
<br />
B: But, Jay, I think it goes beyond a photographic memory. It's also things that not only that she sees, but everything she pretty much experiences. I think it's called an eidetic memory.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: And I've read about guys like that. I read about one guy who supposedly had an extremely &mdash; one of the deepest memories that these researches had ever seen. This guy was just unbelievable, but, like Jay said, this guy was literally debilitated. He couldn't carry on a conversation because he would be constantly assailed by these memories, because things reminded him of everything else, and he really was forced to do parlor tricks in a bar to earn money. It wasn't as helpful as you might think, at least for this guy, and I don't really remember if this guy had any savant characteristics.<br />
<br />
S: That's interesting, because part of the reason why we don't remember everything is because not everything commands an equal amount of attention from us. In fact, one of the key functions of our brain is to make decisions from moment to moment as to what to pay attention to and what to remember and what to suppress so that we're not overwhelmed with irrelevant stimuli or memories. So it's interesting that this woman appears to be highly functional with this kind of memory. I'm definitely going to follow that research, and we'll keep you updated on that.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, being a neurologist, which you are, I want to ask you a question? I'm sure that people have asked you before. Do we have any idea of what the upper limit of memory capacity is for the human brain?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we can calculate that from a theoretical basis. We know how many neurons are in the brain. There are trillions, and roughly how many connections that they make, so we can make some kind of estimate as to bits of data. But the thing is what we don't know is the patterns by which the brain stores data, so one neuron may participate in multiple different memories or different patterns. So that may magnify the amount of information our brain can store by an unquantifiable amount. So ...<br />
<br />
J: And I have another question. Do people's patterns that their brain makes, do they vary in size from person-to-person, or is it pretty much a general &mdash; it's all the same? Like in other words, if you looked at a slice of my brain versus somebody else's brain, are the neurons the same distance apart from each other? Do they all relatively occupy the same amount of space, or are some peoples' closer, and that's why their brain might work faster in certain things.<br />
<br />
S: If you looked at the brain of a genius and the brain of a moron, and I mean that in a technical term, with someone with an IQ of the less than 60, generally you can't tell the difference. It's not in the size of their brain necessarily. It's not in anything that you could see about them pathologically or histologically, the way the cells look. It's in the pattern of connections that the cells make with each other, and we, right now, can't really evaluate that. We don't know how to decode, to tell what's a genius brain and what is the brain of somebody with a subaverage intelligence.<br />
<br />
B: Didn't Einstein have more glial cells than the average person, or is that just apocryphal.<br />
<br />
S: I think that's apocryphal. Plus, there actually was just a recent study published showing that the size of the brain does not really correlate well to intelligence, but that the rate at which the frontal lobe develops does correlate fairly well. So there are clearly other things going on other than sheer size that relates to intelligence within the human species. The other thing that does matter is the degree to which the brain is folded in on itself, the amount of folding, because it's the surface area of the brain that's really important, not necessarily it's volume.<br />
<br />
R: So what you want is a good, lumpy brain.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, but that is certainly true when you compare one species to another and over evolutionary history. I'm not sure that you can really make &mdash; that those comparisons are meaningful within the human species, that more subtle things are at work. But since you bring up that topic, I'll mention it now. I'm going to be at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting next week, which is in San Diego. We're still going to record the show. I'll record from San Diego, and during the show I will give you guys an update on the years' neurological research.<br />
<br />
B: Cool!<br />
<br />
S: So a bit of a neurology theme next week.<br />
<br />
P: I guess next week's Science or Fiction will be about neurologically issues, then.<br />
<br />
S: You got it! That's right. I'll draw them all from the papers and posters that are being presented next week.<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>(21:51)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Let's move onto email. We actually are getting a dramatic increase in the number of emails that we're getting. We certainly love hearing from you listeners out there, so keep sending them in. We greatly appreciate it. We are in the process of significantly upgrading our website and adding new ways to contact us. For example, we've been encouraging you in the past to send us pre-recorded questions. You can record in your own voice asking your question, and we will play that on our podcast. But also, you can email us a question and indicate that you want to ask the question "live" on the show, and we will make arrangements to call you, have you ask your question while we're recording the podcast, and discuss the answer with the panel of skeptics. So if you want to be on the Skeptics' Guide, send us a question, and indicate that you want to be on the podcast. Send us with a telephone number, and we'll make arrangements. Fortunately and unfortunately there are too many emails now for me to read every single one on the podcast. We'll be adding the ones we don't have time to read on the website. I'm going to read four from the last week.<br />
<br />
=== Panspermia <small>(23:07)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The first one is from Paul Irving in Wellington, New Zealand. Apparently, we have quite a following down under. He writes "Steve and team, a big gidday from Wellington, New Zealand, and a very avid listener. You have brought scepticism" &mdash; he spells it in the British way with an SC &mdash; "to life for me. Still, enough flattery" &mdash; no, actually, there's never enough flattery &mdash; but he goes on "I have a question for you after hearing your discussion about panspermia last week. Scientific American has a long article about the potential detrimental effects of gamma rays, etc., on long spaceflights on DNA. The article talks about having shields of up to 5 meters of water around the ship to protect its DNA-carrying content. So how could microbes survive 1 million years in deep space on small rocks between planets subject to the same radiation?"<br />
<br />
B: Well that's &mdash; if you don't mind, I'll try to address that one, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Go ahead. He has another part to his question, but let's talk about this one first. Go ahead.<br />
<br />
B: Okay. Microbes can survive in space for eons, basically, because they have the most diverse metabolisms of anything living on the planet. There's this species of bacteria called extremophiles that thrive in environments that would kill humans instantly, and this also applies to the vacuum of space. Certain species of bacteria evolved proteins that can repair damage to DNA caused by radiation.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
B: It's a amazing ability. They think that might have evolved from bacteria that can survive very dry, very arid environments, and that, somehow, there might be a connection between DNA repair and that type of survivability. The other tactic that they use is hibernation and desiccation. If a bacteria are put in a vacuum, they actually go into hibernation state where their cell becomes completely desiccated, and the fact that there's no metabolism going because they're in hibernation, and the desiccation removes all the water, and that severely limits what kind of damage the radiation could do. So therefore you've got this bacteria that could be an asteroid. It can survive for probably indefinitely until it lands in a suitable environment, and then it would kind of come out of hibernation.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: And then repair the DNA damage and bam! It's not a perfect repair, and there still will be some mutation and death, but they can still do it.<br />
<br />
S: It's also worth noting that bacteria have much less DNA than humans do.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: We have this huge bloated DNA molecule, which can cause lots of damage and is difficult to repair. Bacteria have a much smaller amount of DNA. Also, Bob, recently ...<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ... they've discovered a species of bacteria that has an optimally efficient DNA.<br />
<br />
B: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: You read about that? In other words there's no ...<br />
<br />
B: I read. It's a very interesting story.<br />
<br />
S: ... no exons. Nothing except for the genetic code itself. Most of our DNA is either so-called junk DNA or dormant genes, long repeated segments. They may serve some regulatory function, but they're not coding for proteins, which is what DNA does.<br />
<br />
B: But it's great for evolution, though.<br />
<br />
S: It is good for evolution, which is probably why most of us carry all this junk DNA around. Also because there's no evolutionary pressure to get rid of it, and it just tends to accumulate over time, but apparently there was some evolutionary pressure in the species to optimize the efficiency of its DNA.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, he was saying like millions of years. That's a long time. Let's say you took some cells out of my body and took the microbes that you were talking about, is there such a difference between those two that the microbes would last millions of years and mine wouldn't?<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. But also the article that he is referring to in Scientific American made the point that we're extrapolating from high-intensity short duration exposure to radiation, and what we don't know is will that have the same detrimental effects if it was spread out over months or years. And perhaps our repair mechanisms might be able to keep pace with a slow, steady rate of damage, even though they can't keep pace with a short-term, intense exposure to radiation. So the same is true to even a greater extent with bacteria. Hopefully, one day we'll get to Titan, and imagine if we get there and we find bacteria thriving on Titan with the same basic DNA code as life on Earth. That would certainly be strong evidence that this theory is correct.<br />
<br />
=== Hydrino Power <small>(27:47)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Very quickly, he also asks "By the way, what do you know about something called hydrino power? Sounds like magic to me." Well, Paul, it is magic. Basically, Dr. Randall Mills, who was funded by a company called Blacklight Power, claimed they could get tons of energy out of hydrogen atoms by essentially forcing an electron, a single electron, single proton hydrogen atom. They force it into an energy state below what has previously been known to be the ground state. The ground state is the lowest energy state that an atom can be in. Electrons like to go to the ground state because it's &mdash; you know, water flows downhill &mdash; it's the lowest energy state. So he's saying that there's a state below the ground state, and if you force the electron down there, when that happens, you get all this energy out of the hydrogen atoms, and he could do this chemically. Unfortunately, for Dr. Mills and Blacklight Power, that violates the very well-established laws of quantum mechanics. There's also no evidence empirically to support those claims. So ...<br />
<br />
B: Well, except for neutron stars.<br />
<br />
S: You need gravity like you would find in a neutron star. That can force an electron, a negatively charged electron and a positively charged proton together. But he's saying he can chemically force it into this new lower energy state that there's no evidence exists, and, in fact, violates what so far are the laws of quantum mechanics. So don't invest in that company. That's my personal advice to you.<br />
<br />
=== Bigfoot <small>(29:26)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The second email comes from a gentleman called Kurt Nelson. Kurt writes "Hi, guys. Listened to one of your podcasts yesterday, the one in which you interviewed the guy from the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society. Nice job generally, but I have one criticism for you. After you ended your conversation with the guy, you were talking among yourselves saying what you thought of what he'd said. One of you dismissed the dermal ridges in the cast tracks line of evidence out of hand. 'That's obviously bogus', or something to that effect. Maybe the one who said that had looked into it carefully and can say bogus, but I doubt it. I suspect it was more that it can't be true, so I'm saying it isn't. Maybe you heard some suggestion as to why the dermal ridges aren't real and so dismissed them because you like to latch onto whatever goes with what you'd like to think." He writes in another paragraph comparing us to creationists, but basically the same line of reasoning there. He concludes "It seems like you did that with the dermal ridges thing which, from what I understand, is compelling evidence not easily explained away." Well Kurt, it was me who made the dismissive comment. It was interesting that we got this email, because when I was doing postproduction and I heard myself make the comment, "Yup, that comes off as a little flippant." But I left it in. I was commenting about the hair analysis as well as the dermal ridges. It was, in fact, for that reason that I think it was either one or two episodes ago I did a follow-up on the Bigfoot hair analysis, because I wanted to go into that topic in more depth, basically to follow up on the curt comment, pardon the pun, that I made on the original episode. The same is true of dermal ridges. Now, I have and had in my research prior to the Bigfoot episode read all I can get my hands on on the dermal ridges. So let's talk about that, since Kurt seems to believe that there's compelling evidence. Now what they're talking about is in foot casts of Bigfoot, on close examination of some of the casts you can see little ridges that look like, basically, fingerprints. But there's really only two guys who are promoting this. There's multiple problems with the dermal ridge evidence. In some of the casts even the fact that the dermal ridges are there cannot be independently verified. So there's probably a little bit of imagining going on the part of those who think that they're there. The other problem is that the dermal ridges by the two scientists &mdash; I believe one is by the name of Krantz and the other is like a police officer fingerprint expert &mdash; the problem is that they have validated dermal ridges on casts that are known to be frauds. One was a cast that was specifically sent to Krantz to see if he could tell if it was a fake, and he could not. He validated it. He said it has all the features of a genuine Bigfoot cast, even the secret ones that I don't tell anybody about so that people can't fool me. So he 100% validated it, and the guy confessed that he completely faked it. It's interesting reading the people who say "Oh, this is compelling evidence." The line of reasoning they use is that &mdash; it's basically the argument from personal incredulity. They say "I can't imagine how somebody could possibly fool me, so therefore no one is fooling me, and therefore this is legitimate." Or they can't imagine how somebody could have faked this evidence, therefore it's legitimate, without having a gold standard to compare it to, without having any way of validating that it's genuine, again, with going through that process of testing their hypothesis. But always, it's a lot easier to fool people than it is to detect or to imagine how the fraud could be carried out. For example, this guy said he just placed the dermal &mdash; the fingerprints on the cast by sticking his thumb in the print. You could also just stick your thumb on the plaster before it dries. It's really easy to get dermal ridges onto those plaster casts. It doesn't say anything about the fact that they actually was a true transfer from the mud or whatever it was that the footprint was made of. And people do little things to lend authenticity to the footprints. Like he said, he put like a walnut shell or something crushed under the footprint in order to just make it seem realler, sort of as an afterthought. Or he put little toenail marks in the footprint just to make it look seem a little bit more real. So, when people are creating hoaxes, they add those little details on purpose to make them more believable, and those little details should not in and of themselves make the evidence seem credible. In any case, the bottom line is the dermal ridge evidence is very low quality. It hasn't been validated. It's resting on two guys whose reputations are not sufficient to support this evidence and who have validated known hoaxes. So, in my opinion, that completely invalidates this line of evidence.<br />
<br />
P: Seems easily dismissible.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But the point is well taken in that we don't always have time to go into every little detail on the show. You do have to resist the temptation sometimes to be dismissive.<br />
<br />
P: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: You may have a very elaborate justification for why something is crap.<br />
<br />
P: I think people listening to our show know that we are not apriori skeptics.<br />
<br />
S: They should know that by now. Hopefully, we've earned a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. But, there you go.<br />
<br />
P: I would hope.<br />
<br />
J: It's not beyond me to just offhandedly dismiss something, though.<br />
<br />
S: As long as that is not the end of your investigation.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
R: There's a certain category of things that eventually you have to file away under "crap," because they just come up again and again and again.<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely, absolutely.<br />
<br />
R: You just have to be careful to always be ready to reevaluate what you are saying.<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Absolutely. We say we are not apriori skeptics. That means we don't dismiss something prior to careful analysis, but once we have carefully analyze the subject, we can safely categorize it as BS or nonsense until some newer, startling evidence comes at hand. So if someone's giving us the same old story, we're going to say "Ah, that's nonsense" because we looked at it.<br />
<br />
J: I think my rule of thumb is: I really don't care what the truth is. I like to think that I have a pretty good idea of what the truth is, but I don't have an emotional connection to whatever the newest truth is. You can't.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Right.<br />
<br />
J: You can't align yourself to having an emotional connection to things that you think are the truth.<br />
<br />
S: But it's so amazing &mdash; in the emails that I get that are critical of my position, more based on articles I've published on the Internet &mdash; people are so quick to assume that I have some vested interest in like not wanting to believe that Bigfoot exists. Who cares? Why would I possibly care whether or not Bigfoot exists. It would be really interesting if Bigfoot did exist.<br />
<br />
J: It would be really cool. I would actually be really excited if they found a Bigfoot.<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
J: But, let me say this: until some really compelling evidence comes out, to me it's total crap. There's just not a chance that there's a Bigfoot in my mind.<br />
<br />
P: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Dermal ridges are not it.<br />
<br />
=== Microwaves <small>(37:05)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Let's do one more email, and then we have an interview, and then Science or Fiction coming up. This one is in regards to microwave ovens, and it's from a man who signs his email just as Huxley. Huxley writes "Put this to rest. Are microwaves unsafe?" and he gives a link to an herbal healer website that has all this hysterical rantings about how microwaves are killing all of us. I've looked into the whole microwave oven thing, and, again, you have two kinds of articles out there. The sober scientific articles based upon actual logic and evidence, and then these absolutely ranting articles, which are complete with logical fallacies, these really inappropriate references, these vague references. The FDA has a very complete article on microwaves, and we'll have the link on our notes page. Basically, microwaves themselves, of course, can damage tissue in high enough concentration, just like they cook your meat in your microwave, they can cook your tissue, biological tissue. But the amount of radiation that you would be exposed to, that would leak out an approved microwave, is far below even conservative safety limits. In addition, the microwaves fall off very quickly with distance. So, basically, the recommendations are: don't lean up against the microwave when it's running. If you're even 5 inches away from the microwave the intensity of the radiation is far below the safe limits. And if you want to be paranoid, and you go out to just a couple of feet, you're going to be by several orders of magnitude, you'll be below (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
J: Well, Steve, let's ask the basic questions. If I rigged my microwave to operate with no door or the door open, and I'm standing there right next to it or I put my hand inside the box, it's going to cook my hand just like it would cook any other piece of meat.<br />
<br />
S: Sure. Sure. In fact, you shouldn't use the microwave if the door does not close all the way to seal.<br />
<br />
J: But if the door was open or there was no door and it was operating, and you were standing a foot away from it, you probably would be almost perfectly safe.<br />
<br />
S: A foot away, it drops off pretty quickly, but that might be getting more than the safe limit if the door were open, because the microwaves have shielding on them, and that's the primary protection from getting exposed to high levels of radiation. They can cause cataracts, for example, so if you have it at eye level, you shouldn't be staring at your food cooking in the microwave from 3 inches away.<br />
<br />
R: Well, there goes my entertainment for tonight.<br />
<br />
B: Aaahhh. What's on the microwave tonight?<br />
<br />
R: Chicken again? <br />
<br />
S: The other aspect of the hysteria is that even if you're not getting directly affected by the microwaves that it's poisoning your food. It's breaking down the chemicals in your food and ...<br />
<br />
P: What?!<br />
<br />
S: ... destroying it's nutritional value and making all these carcinogens and everything, and that's just based upon nothing. There's just no evidence, really, to support that. They always have something to base it on, but they have these references that are completely taken out of context. They don't tell the whole story. They're not giving complete information. They extrapolate wildly from very scant evidence. The bottom line is there's nothing to it. And of course, in order to justify why the FDA is saying that these devices are safe, it's of course because there's a huge conspiracy between the microwave oven industrial complex and the FDA are conspiring to poisonous us all.<br />
<br />
P: (''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: They did mention again, and we had mentioned this on a previous podcast about the whole water exploding thing, and the reason for that being that you can superheat water if you have a very clean cup and there's nothing in there to agitate the water or to form as a nidus for the bubbles of gas, then the water can get superheated, basically heated beyond the boiling point, and then when you agitate a little bit like picking up the cup, it could then explode. It could boil away very, very, very quickly. So they said don't overheat liquids in the microwave was one of the cautions that they ...<br />
<br />
J: The good news tonight is that we put the microwave conspiracy totally to bed. That's it. It's done.<br />
<br />
B: Good night.<br />
<br />
J: We never have to talk about microwaves again.<br />
<br />
S: It's done.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, but we should also mention that you should never, ever take drugs and put babies inside. I think we've all learned that from the internet.<br />
<br />
P: That's right. <br />
<br />
S: We previously recorded an interview with cult expert Rick Ross. Let's go to that interview now.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Rick Ross <small>(42:02)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Joining us now is Rick Ross. Rick, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
RR: Thank you. Nice to be here.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks for joining us. So, Rick is the head of the Rick Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups, and Movements. So you're basically a cult awareness or an anticult organization.<br />
<br />
RR: Well, I think that's fair to say, but there are many groups that are included within the database that are simply controversial.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RR: Though some of the groups that are included have been called cults. There are probably somewhere between 200 and 300 subsections involving various groups, organizations, topics, movements, leaders. It's quite a large database.<br />
<br />
S: I know this is inherently difficult if not impossible, but do you have a working definition of what makes a cult a cult?<br />
<br />
RR: Sure. I think the best working definition was essentially devised by Robert Jay Lifton, a well-known psychiatrist and former instructor at Harvard Medical School. He offered three points or criteria to establish whether a group was a destructive cult, and I say destructive cult because there might be a benign cult, and, in fact, there are benign cults that might be bizarre, weird, but do no harm. So, one criteria is that the group does harm.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RR: That it hurts people, and this is a broad range. It could be anything from financial exploitation to violent sexual abuse, medical neglect. All groups are not the same; all groups are not destructive to the same degree. The two other criteria are one, and this is a very important one, that the group is personality driven and defined by a charismatic leader that essentially is authoritarian, has no meaningful accountability, and makes value judgments for the group. Then second, excuse me, third, would be that the group has a process of indoctrination that can be described as coercive persuasion or, as Lifton would say, "thought reform," or, as is commonly called, "brainwashing." Basically, the end result being that people are making decisions that are clearly not in their own best interest.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RR: And that might be, for example, drinking the Kool-Aid, poisoning your own children, not providing basic medical care for children resulting in their death.<br />
<br />
S: Things that are generally not a good idea.<br />
<br />
RR: Exactly.<br />
<br />
P: I always thought that deception was a hallmark of the cultic groups, that they're not upfront about what they believe until they sort of have you deeper in their snares. Would that be accurate?<br />
<br />
RR: I think that's accurate, that many cult groups are deceptive, but what I've given you is really three, I think, kind of bed rock criteria that are commonly agreed-upon. I think deception is common in cult groups, but not always. There are groups that are rather upfront to a large degree.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RR: For example, the followers of the man from France who calls himself Raël, the Raëlians, in Canada. I mean he doesn't pretend to be any more normal or mainstream than he announces himself.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they're right upfront with their beliefs.<br />
<br />
RR: Fairly upfront. I think the part of their belief that is largely below the surface is, according to some reports, that there's a lot of sexual carrying on that is happening at various conferences and get togethers, and that Raël is making out like a bandit in this situation.<br />
<br />
S: I don't know if this rises to the level of being an actual criteria for being a cult, but I've certainly casually noticed that cults have a couple things in common: the guys at the top, the charismatic leader or leaders of a cult, always have two rules right up front. The first is you have to give me all of your money, and the second is I get to have sex with all the pretty girls I want.<br />
<br />
RR: That's kind of a common perception, but you know I've run into groups where the leader doesn't really care about money. In fact, there was a group I ran into in Chicago where when members left they actually said that was one aspect of the group that they appreciated, that the leader did want devotion; he did want to be constantly praised and obeyed; but he didn't care about anybody's money, and when many of the people left, they left with large bank accounts and were able to proceed with their lives fairly well from a financial perspective.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Now of course there's no criterion which is universal to all cults, and not all cults have every negative aspect that is typical of them. It's more of a spectrum from benign sort of pseudo-cults to the worst destructive cults. Would you agree with that spectrum characterization?<br />
<br />
RR: I'd say that Lifton's three criteria that were defined in a paper he wrote in the 80s ...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
RR: ... called "Cult Formation", which listeners can actually see on the Ross Institute database under Mind Control and the subcategory Brainwashing, you can just punch up Lifton's criteria and there they are &mdash; his paper on cult formation, and then his paper on thought reform or, I should say, chapter 22 from his book "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism." You take those two papers together, and you really have a kind of universal description, ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RR: ... in my opinion, of cults and how they operate.<br />
<br />
S: But was it Elizabeth Loftus who wrote another --either it was an article or book about cults that had 20 criteria that, again, some cults will have most of those attributes, but not all cults will have all of those attributes. Are you familiar with what I'm talking about?<br />
<br />
RR: Well, Loftus is more well known for her work in regards to false memories ...<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
RR: ... or the nature of human memory. Actually, the preeminent cult expert of the 20th century was Margaret Singer, ...<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
RR: ... the professor of Psychology from UC Berkeley, and she wrote really a wonderful book that she more or less offered a synthesis of her work for decades, which was called &mdash; and is still in print &mdash; it's called "Cults In Our Midst."<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, I read it. It's an excellent book.<br />
<br />
RR: Yeah, in that book she really lays it out in a way that only someone with her vast experience could, and Margaret was really a good communicator, and I think the book is really quite good at conveying the information in a way that makes it very accessible.<br />
<br />
P: Rick, what do you think of and have you ever been involved in any kind of exit counseling?<br />
<br />
RR: Yes, the public knows this most commonly as "cult deprogramming."<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
RR: It started in the 70s. A guy by the name of Ted Patrick was the first deprogrammer when a relative of his, I believe it was a nephew, was caught up in a terrible group called the Children of God that actually believe that children should be sexualized beginning at the age of four, and sent out women in the group to become literally hookers for Christ. That's how they were known.<br />
<br />
J: My God!.<br />
<br />
RR: They gave the money back to Berg, who reportedly molested his own daughter and granddaughter. I actually met his daughter and granddaughter and was shocked at what they told me he had done to them. One of them had been held prisoner. But at any rate, Ted Patrick, in reaction to Children of God in California and their recruiting in his own family members' recruitment, he devised a means that became known as deprogramming to extricate people from cult groups. It was done in the 70s, particularly in the latter 70s, by court order. Parents would get conservatorships, and they would come with the Sheriff and pick up their cult-involved family member, and involuntarily deprogram them at some secured setting. Later, this became known as exit counseling as professionals wanted to distance themselves from whatever negative connotations deprogramming had, largely through cult propaganda by the Unification Church, commonly called the Moonies, and Scientology. And now, I think people have a number of names for the same process, which is essentially presenting information in an effort to unravel the program instilled in a person's mind by a cult group and get them to start thinking independently again. <br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RR: So some people call it "cult intervention"; others call it "thought reform consultation" or "strategic intervention therapy", but the public largely continues to know it as deprogramming.<br />
<br />
J: Rick, would you say that the number of people that follow a particular cult lessens its cult status.<br />
<br />
RR: Oh, you mean if it's more popular it becomes less desirable.<br />
<br />
J: Well, you talked about the definitions of a cult, and if we look at the big religions of the world, there's versions of all of them that could be considered cultish. So let's take, for example, Scientology, which happens to be ...<br />
<br />
RR: All right.<br />
<br />
J: Which happens to be the one that I dislike the most. How many people are involved in Scientology today versus 15 years ago, 20 years ago?<br />
<br />
RR: Well I think it's shrinking. I think actually that's one of the things that David Miscavige, the current leader for life, apparently, of Scientology that succeeded L. Ron Hubbard, it's founder, can take credit for. He can say "Hey, Ron, L. Ron, I shrunk the church."<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
RR: Because even though he achieved tax-exempt status for Scientology in 1992, which was arguably quite an achievement, and he's kind of spinning the church into a gentler, kinder kind of Scientology with its various volunteer ministers and community outreach, I think that their numbers are probably no more than, and I would say this would be a high estimate, 200,000, but many people would argue that they're well below 100,000, and that represents a shift, a shrinking in the actual church in recent years.<br />
<br />
J: Well, coming from you, that makes me very happy to hear that. But I want to focus a little bit on my point. Let's say over the next 10 years there happened to be an increase of 5 million members to Scientology. Would that in any way affect your opinion of it as being a cult?<br />
<br />
RR: No. If it still continued to have the same dynamics as Lifton illustrates and the same criteria that he, I think, very well defined in his paper "Cult Formation," they would continue to be a destructive cult, but a very successful one, a very large one.<br />
<br />
J: Right.<br />
<br />
RR: There's a wonderful book. It's called "The True Believer," by Eric Hoffer, and Hoffer would argue that groups, when they become big, become satisfied. They become content, no longer frustrated, and not quite so ambitious, because they're part of the establishment. So I think, arguably, a group can evolve. It can begin as a cult, evolve into a religion, and may eventually become a fairly mainstream and benign religion, despite its early beginnings.<br />
<br />
S: I think that if Scientology survives, I think it's headed generally in that direction. I think you'd agree that cults are defined by their behavior, not their beliefs, generally. So, it almost doesn't matter how bizarre their beliefs are. All supernatural beliefs are, from one point of view, equally bizarre, because they're supernatural, and that's not how you define a cult, anyway. So if they do evolve into a more of a benign behavior pattern, then they are really indistinguishable from religion. Would you say that the Mormon church, for example, is an example of a church that started out as a cult, although I think it probably still has some cultish aspects to it, even today?<br />
<br />
RR: I would say that Scientology, hopefully, will evolve into a more benign mainstream religion, but I don't see anything that compelling or convincing at this point, especially after the South Park debacle ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RR: ... and what happened through that whole story. Talking about the Mormons, yeah, I would say that when they began, they essentially were defined by one man: Joseph Smith, who claimed that he had a revelation; he claimed that he had special powers; he could translate golden plates, that conveniently disappeared later.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RR: And, by the way, if you really want to see something really funny, watch South Park's sendup of Mormonism, which is hilarious. I also have that script in the database, and, unlike Scientologists, the Mormons &mdash; I guess they have a better sense of humor, because they didn't go to such extremes to try and have the show pulled or whatever. But Mormonism began as a religion or a belief system defined by one individual, and that was Joseph Smith, and he had absolute authoritarian power. He made value judgments, and arguably exploited the group. He had a revelation, for example, that said that he could have any women that he wanted, and that he was a general of their army. He was the mayor of Nauvoo, their city. I mean he was the end-all and be-all of the Mormons, and then after his death Brigham Young largely continued that legacy, and had that kind of power, and had, I think it was reported, over 50 wives. But eventually the Mormon church would change. It would evolve, and there would be the first Council of the Presidency, more power-sharing, and then it would go further, and they would have what they called the first quorum of the 70, second quorum of the 70, and today, though Mormonism still has a lot of it's baggage that can be seen as its cult baggage, it's basically a religion, though I think it's fair to say not a Christian religion.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Rick, I was going ask you about, because I've been reading a little bit lately about well things like the Heaven's Gate cult and you also mentioned obviously several places on your website you refer to Jonestown. These kinds of apocalyptic, these total destruction sort of cults, are there any out there right now that represent the same signs leading up to something tragic like this in which we're going to read in the headlines in the coming months or years that again a mass group of people decided to commit suicide based on the tenants of the cult?<br />
<br />
S: Can you predict, I guess basically, which cult is going to self-destruct like that?<br />
<br />
RR: Well, in 1999 there was a great deal of interest in this as the millennium approached, and actually the largest cult mass suicide may have occurred in 2000, exceeding Jonestown. It happened in Uganda. They were the followers of a man by the name of Joseph Kibweteere, and the movement was called the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, but because of the relative isolation of the group and the lack of proper technical teams to go out and recover the bodies, what happened was they only recovered 750 of the dead of the movement, and there may have been more than 1000. So that was a millennialist group. Kibweteere had predicted that the end of the world would come in the year 2000. When it didn't, many of his followers wanted to leave, and, by the way, they wanted their money back. Kibweteere didn't quite see it that way, and he murdered quite a few of them, and, finally, 500 of them died in mass in a church that was set on fire with it's doors and windows chained shut.<br />
<br />
E: Unbelievable.<br />
<br />
RR: And in there was Joseph Kibweteere. There are many groups that are continued to be focused on the end of the world, like a group in Abilene, Texas called the House of Yahweh, which currently is making end-times predictions. They have a leader by the name of Yisrayl Hawkins. And then there is a group called, literally, Endtime Ministries, in Florida, led by a man by the name of Charles Mead, that not only denies medical care for its members due to their beliefs, including children, but is focused on the end of the world.<br />
<br />
J: It's pretty morbid.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Is there no position authorities or anyone in a position of authority can take to try to break this, to do something about this to save these people's lives potentially? Like you said, their compass is pointing that direction. It does seem like they're going to do something drastic someday.<br />
<br />
RR: Well, I think the government, increasingly, and local authorities are taking on the whole cult question on a case-by-case basis. So in other words when a group does something criminal, such as a child dies from medical neglect or they are beaten very badly, such as a group called The House of Prayer in Atlanta, their leader was jailed because of the beatings of children, or a group called the General Assembly and Church of the First Born, largely in Colorado and surrounding states. Many parents have been prosecuted because they denied their children basic medical care that could have saved their lives, and children died. So there have been a number of groups in the United States and Canada that have found themselves in the dock in court because of their behavior, but I think the government and the authorities take that on a case-by-case basis.<br />
<br />
S: Is their a legal basis for going after the group as a whole or do they just go after the individuals in the group for the behavior?<br />
<br />
RR: They go after the individual group members for their situations and their crimes as individuals, but in some cases they can go after the leader. For example, there was a group called Faith Assembly an Indiana and largely in the Midwest led by a man by the name of Hobart Freeman, and he was prosecuted. The group believed, like Endtime Ministries, that medical care should not be sought by any of its members, and over a hundred people died in Faith Assembly, and Hobart Freeman was eventually prosecuted in conjunction with that.<br />
<br />
E: Good.<br />
<br />
P: Rick, have you ever personally talked to someone who let their child die through some abuse or lack of common sense medical care by one of these groups?<br />
<br />
RR: Yes.<br />
<br />
P: Is there ever repentance there, sorrow?<br />
<br />
RR: Oh, deep, deep sorrow. I've talked to members of Endtime Ministries, Faith Assembly, I talked to a woman that was involved in the Children of God whose child died in an accident that would not have occurred if she was not with this group in a third world country in unsafe travel conditions. The child was literally knocked out of her arms in a truck on a rocky road, and the infant smashed its skull on a rock and died. And she carried enormous grief over what had happened. She left the group and felt terrible about her involvement in what it had done to her life. And likewise I've sat and talked with mothers who just have wept and wept over the situation they were in and what they believed at that time and how they felt it was the right thing that ultimately lead to tragedy.<br />
<br />
P: So tragedies of that magnitude can, what, bring people out of these cults?<br />
<br />
RR: Well, I think that the tragedies that some of these people have experienced have brought them out, but with just incredible damage.<br />
<br />
P: Too late.<br />
<br />
RR: Remorse and grief.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Do you have an opinion as to one cult that you would say is the most destructive or does the most harm?<br />
<br />
RR: Well, you know ...<br />
<br />
S: Anything stand out?<br />
<br />
RR: Some of these small groups that are relatively unknown, and I can remember in 1990 sitting at a conference when people were discussing what groups are the worst in the country, and I mentioned the Waco Davidians, and people looked at me and said "Who are they?"<br />
<br />
E: Oh, my.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
RR: So that group was never more than maybe 200 people, but it became internationally known. There are groups today that are small. For example, there's a group called the Endeavor Academy in Wisconsin led by a man named Chuck Anderson, who largely bases his group on a book called "A Course in Miracles." This is a book that supposedly was channeled by a psychiatrist who was channeling Jesus of Nazareth, and wrote a book supposedly as a channel for that individual. So Chuck Anderson has taken that book, which I regard essentially as benign, and it's used by many people in a rather benign way and study groups, and he has what can be seen as a cult following of people that he completely controls in Wisconsin, in an area called the Wisconsin Dells, and I find that group to be very troublesome, very scary group.<br />
<br />
S: Do any of these groups ever come after you personally or financially or legally?<br />
<br />
RR: These groups have sued me repeatedly. For example, there's an organization called Landmark Education. They were previously known as Erhard Seminars Training or EST. They have something called The Forum, which is a weekend seminar in which they supposedly bring you to a kind of philosophical epiphany about the world and life.<br />
<br />
P: What do they charge people for that?<br />
<br />
RR: I think it's around 500 bucks for that revelation. Anyway, Landmark was not happy that when you Google "landmark education", first comes their website and then comes the Ross Institute database, which is a very large archive of often critical articles historically documenting all the problems that Landmark has had and EST has had and its founder Werner Erhard, whose given name was Jack Rosenberg, has had historically. So they sued me for a million bucks, and they went through a process that was ultimately very humiliating. A very large law firm, Lowenstein, Sandler in New Jersey took on my case pro bono. I suspect their strategy was as many of these groups when they file what I would consider harassment or slap suits, that they will tear you apart by draining you financially ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
RR: ... through litigation and legal fees, costs etc.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
RR: What happened instead is the opposite. Lowenstein and Sandler, a huge law firm, took my case up, not charging me a penny, and the lead lawyer was Peter Skolnik, who also represents the intellectual property, the show The Sopranos and the estate of Nabokov. He's quite a guy, and he beat 'em. Boy, did he beat 'em. He was in discovery with these guys, and rather than bring out the documents that were requested, they actually filed and dismissed their own lawsuit.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
J: Good for him.<br />
<br />
P: Excellent.<br />
<br />
RR: That was pretty bad for them. It was a South-Parkian experience.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
P: Good for you, Rick.<br />
<br />
J: I'm glad to hear that you appreciate South Park. You've mentioned them twice, and we also are fans of the show on our show. We think that the way that they represent cult religions, the way that they represent just mysticism in general is very, very funny and also very informative.<br />
<br />
P: Those guys get it right. They get it right.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
RR: And there is also an axiom or a moral to be learned for Scientology from the entire match off with South Park, and that is: never mud wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, the the pig gets dirty, but the pig has fun. Now I'm not saying that Matt and Trey are pigs, but I'm saying they had a lot of fun.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. I think you got it right. Well, Rick, thanks for joining use. We certainly appreciate it. It was very informative, very interesting.<br />
<br />
RR: All right, well thank you.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks, Rick.<br />
<br />
E: Thanks very much, Rick.<br />
<br />
S: We hope to have you back again the next time there is a big destructive cult exploding. Maybe we'll get you back on the show.<br />
<br />
RR: Hey, there you go.<br />
<br />
S: Keep up the good work.<br />
<br />
RR: All right. Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: Take care. Well, Rick Ross is an absolute font of cult information. That guy knows his stuff.<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
J: I thought he was very interesting, and I'd love to have him on again.<br />
<br />
P: If he wanted to, that guy could start a scintillating cult.<br />
<br />
B: Ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
P: He could.<br />
<br />
S: He could.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah. I forgot to ask him, but I wanted to see if he'd be interested in starting a religion with me.<br />
<br />
P: Nice. That's right.<br />
<br />
S: Well, you have his email, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Thats were the money is, come on!<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(69:29)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: We're getting short on time, so let's move on to Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
(intro)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts. Two are genuine, one is fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to see if they can tell which one is fake. And, of course, I challenge you listeners at home as well. No theme this week, just three news items. Actually, I had so many to pick from, I was toying with the idea of maybe expanding to four items. Do you think that would be too many?<br />
<br />
P: Take it easy.<br />
<br />
S: I'll stick with three.<br />
<br />
J: It's a magic number.<br />
<br />
S: Are you guys ready?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, come on, let's go.<br />
<br />
S: Alright. Item number one: biologists have genetically engineered a pig to produce healthier bacon. Healthy bacon. Item number two: fossil evidence confirms that the Arctic polar region was once home to a lush tropical forest. And item number three: scientists have produced gravitomagnetic fields in the laboratory 100 million trillion times larger than Einstein's general relativity predicts. That's one times ten to the 20th power.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
R: I have no idea what that means.<br />
<br />
S: It means anti-gravity, baby. It's a gravitational field.<br />
<br />
R: Okay.<br />
<br />
P: Jeepers.<br />
<br />
R: Okay.<br />
<br />
P: Who's up first?<br />
<br />
S: You are, Perry, since you spoke.<br />
<br />
P: Me!<br />
<br />
S: So, healthy bacon ...<br />
<br />
P: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: ... tropical forests in the north pole, or gravitometric fields.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, that's a big number, that last one there. What did you call it, a million trillion?<br />
<br />
S: A hundred million trillion. One times ten to the 20th power times --the strength of the field is that much times stronger than was theoretically predicted by general relativity.<br />
<br />
P: You tell my Einstein got it that wrong?<br />
<br />
S: Apparently.<br />
<br />
P: That's pretty serious. You know, that number's too big to contemplate. You know healthy bacon. Yeah, you know. They genetically modify so many things these days that I can go with healthy bacon. It's probably true. The second one &mdash; plants in the Arctic. It's pretty cold up there, but climate shifts and changes around and could (''unintelligible'') of global warming, in my opinion. I'm going to say the third one is false. I don't think Einstein got it that wrong.<br />
<br />
S: All righty. Jay?<br />
<br />
P: That's my opinion.<br />
<br />
J: Well, healthy bacon, to me that's an impossibility, because bacon, first off, is unbelievably, unhealthy and incredibly delicious. I'l tell you now, if they make healthy bacon, I will eat it every single day till the day I die. I'm going to say that that is complete crap. But I do want to talk about the other two things, real quick. I would believe the forest in the polar region, and the gravitational field &mdash; my question regarding that would've been how incredibly small was Einstein's original idea, in other words ...?<br />
<br />
S: Very tiny.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Very, very tiny.<br />
<br />
J: So that one could be true if his thing was so insanely small that if even though it was that much larger, maybe it still is nothing. So I'm going to say that healthy bacon is bull.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
R: Jay, you should up the ante and if there is such a thing as healthy bacon, you should eat like an entire (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: How about this: eat an entire adult pig.<br />
<br />
J: If there is healthy bacon, and we will have to define what healthy is. Relatively not going to kill me. I'll eat ten pounds of it in one day.<br />
<br />
S: All right, you got it. Rebecca, why don't you go?<br />
<br />
R: Awesome. Okay, well I know that they make healthy bacon because I read that.<br />
<br />
J: Ooooooohhh.<br />
<br />
R: So I can't wait. So that leaves the other two, and now I can't even concentrate because I'm picturing Jay eating ten pounds. How many pounds of bacon? Ten pounds of bacon. I'm going to go with the third one.<br />
<br />
S: The big number.<br />
<br />
P: That's a big number.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's a big number.<br />
<br />
S: Bob?<br />
<br />
B: Read the third one for me again, Steve, please.<br />
<br />
S: Scientists have produced gravitomagnetic fields in a laboratory 100 million trillion times larger than Einstein's general relativity predicts.<br />
<br />
B: That's crap. Come on. All right, the healthier bacon. Well, it doesn't seem that hard to me. Less fat, more lean meat. Done! Game over. There you go. Healthier bacon. Right there. And the lush forest ...<br />
<br />
J: I'll kill all you guys.<br />
<br />
B: I mean a lush forest in the Arctic. I mean that's no surprise. We have plate tectonics and the supposed ...<br />
<br />
S: Lush, tropical forests.<br />
<br />
B: So what? Gravitometric fields. To me, that's obvious crap. If you want to make a gravitational field, you need one thing. You need mass. That's it. You're not going to make it like on "I Dream of Genie" when you walk in the room, and they turn off gravity and stuff. We're not going to manipulate matter or gravity like that. If you want gravity, you need mass, period. So three's my choice.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. So let's start with number one &mdash; biologists &mdash; because Rebecca gave it away. This was on every science news site I went to. I figured somebody had seen this. They did genetically engineer a pig that basically increases the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in their fats. So, Bob, it's not just that there's less fat and it's leaner, the fat that they have, it's less of the omega-6, which is the bad fat, and it's more of the omega-3, which is the HDL, the good fat. So, these are really healthy pigs. Now, there's two benefits to this. The first is that the pigs themselves are healthier, that they should live longer, which means that they would be more profitable, etc. The second is that eating the pigs would be healthier, and, in fact, could not only be more healthy could actually be like a health food, because it's like eating fish, right? You're getting the omega-3 fatty acids. No one has eaten these pigs, yet, because they're not FDA-approved for human consumption. More testing is required. My question is, and I guess were not going to figure this out until somebody eats one of these pigs, are these pigs going to taste like fish?<br />
<br />
P: Heh, heh.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because omega-3 fatty acids taste like fish.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that is the fish taste.<br />
<br />
S: That is the fish taste. So, Jay, I personally don't like that fish taste. You're going to eat ten pounds once the FDA approves this pig, Jay. You're going to eat ten pounds of fishy pig.<br />
<br />
J: Now hold on. This is spiralling insanely out of control. Let's reel this back in. I will start by saying I am not eating bacon that tastes like fish.<br />
<br />
R: You can have an egg with it if you want.<br />
<br />
P: All twelve of them, Jay. <br />
<br />
J: By the time this unbelievably delicious, healthy bacon gets to my plate, we won't event be doing this podcast anymore. So.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
R: I don't care. I'll track you down.<br />
<br />
P: This podcast will live for a thousand years.<br />
<br />
J: All right, bring the bacon on and I'll eat it.<br />
<br />
S: Let's go to &mdash; the rest of you said that number three was obviously bogus.<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: Number three is in fact absolutely true.<br />
<br />
P: What?!<br />
<br />
S: Now.<br />
<br />
P: That's not true.<br />
<br />
S: The scientists who discovered this were, like yourselves, skeptical of their own results. They ran the experiments hundreds of times to confirm that it was, in fact, correct. So, what they did, Bob, is they have these superconducting discs, and they have to rotate them at a certain speed, and they produce these gravitomagnetic fields, which is basically the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field. It's still tiny. It's like a millionth the gravitational field of the earth, so it's small. But it was one times ten to the 20th power greater than what we would predict from general relativity. So this is a significant, significant result. This is probably an important step on the way towards having a quantum theory of gravity, which, of course, Einstein &mdash; it's the one thing that he never was able to solve or really to make any progress on. Of course, the headlines are &mdash; whenever you talk about anything with physics to do with gravity, the headlines always say antigravity device or "can this produce antigravity?" It's just like every time you find a fossil, it's a missing link. Everytime we do an experiment on gravity it's like an antigravity breakthrough. But whether or not this will actually lead to any kind of antigravity device is unclear. But still a very important breakthrough. Now the second one is the fiction &mdash; the fossil evidence for tropical forests in the polar region. It is true that in epochs in the past there were forests in the polar region.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But never, ever, ever tropical.<br />
<br />
B: Ah!<br />
<br />
S: There were trees that would have been similar to trees that you would find in Oregon or in Maine.<br />
<br />
B: But not Brazil.<br />
<br />
S: Not Brazil. Not even really subtropical, and certainly not tropical. In fact, I got this from the Science News website, and they were reprinting an article that was first print published in 1936. So this particular misconception was put to rest in 1936 in the pages of Science News.<br />
<br />
R: I must have missed that issue.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you missed that issue.<br />
<br />
R: Otherwise I totally would have gotten that right. <br />
<br />
S: But I think people still have this concept of polar rain forests and tropical forests. It's still kind of a &mdash; text books, I think, still carry that myth forward. But it has been put to rest.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but couldn't through plate tectonics, couldn't a region near the equator have a lush, tropical forest, and then through plate tectonic movement just kind of migrate to the polar regions?<br />
<br />
S: The article refers to some theoretical reasons why that is not possible.<br />
<br />
B: Really?<br />
<br />
S: But they didn't elaborate, but, also, the empirical evidence supports that there were never tropical forests in that region, only more temperate evergreen forests. So the physical evidence just says it never happened, and theoretically it's not supposed to have ever happened. So I got all of you guys this time.<br />
<br />
B: Good job, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are way out of time. Rebecca, it was a pleasure having you. Again, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
B: Great having you aboard, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
S: It is great having you aboard.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, I had a blast.<br />
<br />
S: And again next week at least for my part I'll be recording from San Diego, the American Academy of Neurology meeting, and we'll bring you some of the latest in neurological developments, and we'll have a neurology-themed Science or Fiction. So until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Outro30}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_36&diff=9819SGU Episode 362015-04-09T21:14:19Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
|transcriber = Jim Gibson<br />
|date = 2015-04-09<br />
}}<br />
{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 36<br />
|episodeDate = March 29<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:PlaceholderSGU.png<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|guest1 = RR: Rick Ross<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast03-29-06.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Solar Eclipse <small>(1:21)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica<small>(9:30)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== The Woman who Never Forgets <small>(15:02)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>(21:51)</small>==<br />
<br />
=== Panspermia <small>(23:07)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Hydrino Power <small>(27:47)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Bigfoot <small>(29:26)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Microwaves <small>(37:05)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Interview with Rick Ross <small>(42:02)</small>==<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:09:32)</small>==<br />
<br />
<br />
{{Outro30}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9818Template:SGU episode list2015-04-09T21:12:29Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 35 as completed; 36 as being transcribed.</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
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Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
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{|<br />
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|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
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| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
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|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
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<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 508]], Apr 4 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{i}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_35&diff=9817SGU Episode 352015-04-09T21:08:50Z<p>Jim Gibson: Finish transcription.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 35<br />
|episodeDate = March 22<sup>nd</sup> 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Chef.jpg<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast03-22-06.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, March 22, 2006. This is your host Stephen Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. With me today are Perry DeAngelis, ...<br />
<br />
P: Yes, how are you all?<br />
<br />
S: ... Bob Novella, ...<br />
<br />
B: Thanks for joining us, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Evan Bernstein, ....<br />
<br />
E: Hello, everyone in the world.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Jay Novella.<br />
<br />
J: Hello, gov'nor.<br />
<br />
S: How are you guys doing, tonight?<br />
<br />
B: Good, Steve.<br />
<br />
P: All right.<br />
<br />
J: Pretty good, buddy.<br />
<br />
E: It's all right. Hanging in.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== More on Scientology and South Park <small>(00:48)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: I got a couple of the follow-up pieces in the news item section of our show. The first is an update on the South Park and Scientology hubbub.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Isaac Hayes.<br />
<br />
S: As we talked about the last week, Isaac Hayes, who does the voice of Chef, quit the show South Park to protest their religious intolerance, by which he meant the fact that they dared to make fun of his religion, Scientology. Well, apparently, ...<br />
<br />
P: Loser!<br />
<br />
S: ... the plot thickens. This is actually part of a more coordinated attack, if you will, by Scientology on South Park. Apparently, Tom Cruise has threatened not to do any publicity for the upcoming Mission Impossible 3 movie unless the Comedy Central, the makers of South Park, agree not to re-air the Scientology episode, an episode that made absolutely relentless fun of Tom Cruise and the beliefs of Scientologists.<br />
<br />
P: And was accurate.<br />
<br />
E: The connection here is that Viacom, I believe, has a stake in both Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. Viacom owns both.<br />
<br />
B: Guys! Guys. It says that reportedly Tom Cruise objected, but it's also saying that a spokesperson for Cruise denied that he made the threat, so where's this rumor coming from? What's the source?<br />
<br />
P: That's a good point.<br />
<br />
S: I did note that, that he was not admitting that that's what happened. The article did not cite a specific source, but I think the creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, ...<br />
<br />
B: Maybe they ...<br />
<br />
S: ... are claiming this. They're quoted as saying "So, Scientology, you have won this battle, but the million-year war for Earth has just begun. Temporarily anazanyzing ..." &mdash; what is that?<br />
<br />
B: I don't know. What does that mean?<br />
<br />
S: " ... the episode will not stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man bodies."<br />
<br />
P: Ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
S: That was their response to ...<br />
<br />
P: Something to do with Scientology.<br />
<br />
E: Exactly.<br />
<br />
J: I was talking to a friend of mine about this, and in order for Matt Stone and Trey Parker to just come up with this whole thing makes absolutely no sense. They wouldn't jeopardize Isaac Hayes on the show, because Chef is one of the most popular characters. There's just no reason for them to make it up. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.<br />
<br />
P: You mean make up the thing about Cruise?<br />
<br />
J: The whole thing. The whole thing. Either it happened or it didn't. Because I just read today that Isaac Hayes &mdash; his camp, I think, denies that the whole exchange took place, now.<br />
<br />
P: That he didn't quit the show? He quit the show!<br />
<br />
J: I'm just telling you what I read.<br />
<br />
P: Well, but he quit the show. Stone and Trey, they're talking about it.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, that was widely reported.<br />
<br />
P: I mean he quit the show.<br />
<br />
S: It is true also that the episode was scheduled to re-air on March 15th, but Comedy Central abruptly pulled it, so something happened.<br />
<br />
P: Something happened, yeah. The worst part for me is this nonsense about Isaac Hayes coming up and saying well this is about intolerance and all that. It's such a bunch of crap, and Matt Stone said so. He says "This is 100% having to his faith in Scientology.He has no problem and he's cashed plenty of checks with our show making fun of Christians."<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Yup.<br />
<br />
P: That is so true.<br />
<br />
J: Here's a quote from Isaac Hayes, I guess a little bit earlier on while he was doing South Park. He said "Hey, let me tell you. I worked years to achieve artistic excellence, and then all of a sudden I get involved in this stupid, crazy, insane cartoon, and now I'm hotter than I've ever been. I love it. I love it."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: There you go.<br />
<br />
E: There you go.<br />
<br />
S: Well, we'll keep you updated if anything further develops, but ...<br />
<br />
P: He is an absolute hypocritical slime. That is my personal opinion.<br />
<br />
S: He is. He is.<br />
<br />
B: Well, you know what? I'm hoping that in the future somebody's thinking about grabbing Cruise for a movie, and it just crosses their mind that "Hey, wait a second. If there's just any little Scientology hubbub, he might not even promote our movie, because he's throwing a little hissy fit." Now I doubt that's going to happen, because it's still Tom Cruise. He's still got a lot of draw, and they're still going to use him, but I just hope at some point that it really comes back and bites him in the ass.<br />
<br />
S: We could hope, probably in vain.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah. We could hope.<br />
<br />
J: Tom Cruise is a disgrace.<br />
<br />
S: To what? To Hollywood actors?<br />
<br />
J: He's a total disgrace.<br />
<br />
S: To humanity, maybe?<br />
<br />
J: I don't even know where to begin. He's just &mdash; I abhor him. I lost any ounce of like that I had for him is totally gone after the past year.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. It's unfortunate that he's a damn fine actor. Very unfortunate.<br />
<br />
P: He couldn't save "War of the Worlds."<br />
<br />
S: I liked that movie.<br />
<br />
J: That movie sucked!<br />
<br />
S: Another follow-up.<br />
<br />
P: That was not a good movie.<br />
<br />
=== Fraudulent Stem Cell Researcher Fired <small>(05:41)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: This from South Korea. The scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who is the stem cell researcher who was disgraced after it came out that he had faked, essentially, large portions of his stem cell research, was finally fired from the National University, ...<br />
<br />
E: Finally.<br />
<br />
S: ... where he worked.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, finally. <br />
<br />
S: When I read the article, I was "he wasn't fired already?". I was kind of shocked that he hadn't already been fired, but I guess they were waiting ...<br />
<br />
E: Or resigned, or that he stepped down.<br />
<br />
S: He was fired.<br />
<br />
J: They had him on some type of leave-of-absence business while they figured out what to do.<br />
<br />
S: They also revoked his license to conduct embryonic stem cell research. This is the South Korean government, so that puts a bit of a punctuation at the end of that story.<br />
<br />
E: The Raëlians have invited him to do research with their own form of Scientology and cults and whatever.<br />
<br />
S: The Raëlians are a UFO cult who a couple years ago claimed to have cloned the first human, and then, essentially, after a completely uncritical media cycle, it basically came out that they lied about this just for the millions of dollars of free publicity that it gave them.<br />
<br />
B: They got it.<br />
<br />
S: It totally worked.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, they did.<br />
<br />
S: The media completely bought into it.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, who didn't hear about them back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. They're another UFO cult, just like Scientology.<br />
<br />
P: Really.<br />
<br />
E: There's a lot of them.<br />
<br />
B: Quick, guys, back to Dr. Woo-suk Hwang, I guess that's how you pronounce it. I was just flipping through a four- or five-month-old Scientific American, and they have this section "Research Leader of the Year for 2005," and he was like number one: Research Leader of the Year for 2005.<br />
<br />
P: Hey, if you're just making stuff up and lying, it's very easy to be spectacular.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it is.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
B: I'm looking at a website right now, and here they officially remove him from that honored position, so.<br />
<br />
P: Good, good.<br />
<br />
E: Just like they should remove Barry Bonds's home run record, 73, for pumping himself up with steroids.<br />
<br />
P: Thank you.<br />
<br />
E: But that's a separate subject for another night.<br />
<br />
S: That's a different podcast, I think.<br />
<br />
J: You know with a name like "You Suck Wang," that guy, I mean, really, he better get it straight.<br />
<br />
B: "Woo." It's "Woo."<br />
<br />
J: Oh, excuse me, "Woo Suck Want."<br />
<br />
E: You have to get it right, Jay.<br />
<br />
P: He's out. He's out. Next case. Out.<br />
<br />
=== Endangered Species <small>(8:09)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Next case. The Union of Concerned Scientists &mdash; now which it says "citizens and scientists for environmental solutions." I always get a little suspicious when I see &mdash; I think this is a legitimate organization, but it sounds like a lot of the front organizations that the Moonies used. They always have these really benign sounding names. This is a legitimate organization. Yeah, "Professors for World Peace."<br />
<br />
P: Professors for World Peace is a Moonie organization.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly. They have sent a letter, with over 5,700 scientists signing, to the congressmen of the United States basically saying that they are concerned.<br />
<br />
P: The salient point of this piece, Steve, is there's this legislation coming up, and they feel that it's really going to weaken the Endangered Species Act, and what it says here is they say "First, the legislation transfers the authority for deciding what is the best available science from scientists to political appointees ..."<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: "... in the Department of the Interior. Second, the legislation requires decisions affecting species to be based on empirical data, effectively eliminating the use of established scientific techniques such as modeling, population surveys, and taxonomic and genetic studies."<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
P: It goes on to talk about how it's going to change the areas designated as protected habitat. They're going to change it to something &mdash; used to be called "critical habitat" and they're going to replace it with something called "special value habitat".<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: But they say there's no guidelines as to what special value means. No attention to historical habitat or further habitat the species might occupy, and no requirement or guidelines for habitat protection.<br />
<br />
S: So basically ...<br />
<br />
P: That's sort of their main problems with it.<br />
<br />
S: Basically, what we're seeing here are some techniques used by those with a political agenda to take control of this area from scientists. So the first is obvious.<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: They're just going to take certain decision-making out of the hands of scientists and into the hands of politicians. That strategy is similar, for example, to efforts to pass laws to require the teaching of intelligent design. It's basically the same thing. They're saying "Scientists are not going to decide what science is; politicians are going to decide what science is" in the guise of this law.<br />
<br />
P: Isn't it also similar, Steve, in the medical field with HMOs? Is that the same kind of thing?<br />
<br />
S: Well ...<br />
<br />
P: They took decision-making away from the practitioners?<br />
<br />
S: Well, in a way, yeah. They put it in the hands of bean counters, but ...<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... there the agenda was to save money. "We're not going to let physicians decide what tests are appropriate to do."<br />
<br />
P: So not politicians but accountants.<br />
<br />
S: That's right. That's right.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Although sometimes it is politicians. For example, chiropractors have been very successful at lobbying state governments to force insurance companies to pay for chiropractic care, again, using a political process to subvert a question which should be scientific.<br />
<br />
P: But to the best of our knowledge, that group Hope, which I believe is now defunct, a gullible ghost group, they were trying to get possession covered medically as a medical (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
S: He wasn't really lobbying for coverage so much as just trying to present demonic possession as a psychiatric diagnosis.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: That was just pseudoscience.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, I know.<br />
<br />
E: That's a problem.<br />
<br />
P: I think he was trying for coverage, too. But anyway, nothing happened.<br />
<br />
S: Getting back to the Concerned Scientists, the other elements of the strategy here &mdash; one is to replace a very specifically defined term "critical habitat" with a vaguely defined term: "special value." Again, that gives the politicians wiggle room to essentially do an end run around science. They get to decide what land they want to consider special, and they remove any scientific criteria or any kind of objective criteria for designating special habitat.<br />
<br />
B: Well, whose the force behind this? Whose bright idea was this?<br />
<br />
S: It doesn't say who the main supporters are, just that it is a bill in the Senate.<br />
<br />
P: It would be good to know, though.<br />
<br />
J: Well, it's an interesting web site.<br />
<br />
S: It's House legislation they're talking about. <br />
<br />
J: I took a took at the website. I think it's a good site. If people want to go to it it's www.ucsusa.org.<br />
<br />
P: It'll be in the notes, of course. Along with the podcast, the link will be there.<br />
<br />
S: Right. The other strategy, just to complete the analysis, they want to eliminate or restrict the use of deciding what species are endangered to empirical data. Basically, again, they are trying to decide what qualifies as science, trying to limit the scope of what scientists can do to make it harder for them to prove that a species is endangered. They can't use legitimate techniques like population surveys and modeling. They say no, basically raising the bar on the proof. You need to produce empirical data. Again, that's completely arbitrary. It's not as if mainstream scientists are misusing these other methods. It's just a way of making it harder, essentially, to designate a species as endangered.<br />
<br />
E: So they're doing an end-around the scientists instead of listening to them.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. It's basically the broader concept here. It's politicians trying to use these legal mechanisms to do an end-run around a process that should be informed by science, not overwhelmed by politics. This is a problem in our government in a much broader sense, regardless of what end of the particle spectrum you're on. Of course, we have a Republican administration now, so the emphasis recently has been on the right wing abuse of science. In fact, one of our previous guests, Chris Mooney, wrote a book "The Republican War On Science," but both ends of the political spectrum abuse science for their own political agenda. The radical pro-environmentalists are just as likely to distort the facts as the anti-environmentalists, for example. In many areas where it's energy policy, environmental policy, etc., that are driven chiefly by scientific data, they really need to find a process that allows science to be at the forefront of this decision making. Unfortunately they tend to get mired in politics, and politicians are just getting more savvy at manipulating the scientific process, and this is just another example of that.<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>(14:52)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well, finally, in the news this week, Noah's Ark has cropped up again. Now, of course, it doesn't take a Biblical scholar to know the story of {{w|Noah's Ark}}. This is early on in Genesis. The world was covered in a worldwide flood. God spoke to Noah; warned him of this; instructed him to build an Ark; put two of every animal on there. Actually, I think it was all of the &mdash; it was two of every predator and seven of all the domesticated herbivores.<br />
<br />
B: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Hm.<br />
<br />
S: But, basically, fill the Ark with animals to perpetuate their species; they survived the Flood; the Ark came to rest at the top of a mountain. You know, in modern times, Biblical scholars have interpreted that as {{w|Mount Ararat}}. Actually, I think that even goes back into Medieval times; the thinking that that was Mount Ararat. And, I remember in the 1970s, there was a movie, ''In Search of Noah's Ark'', where they had ...<br />
<br />
B: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Remember that movie?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So there's a lot of blurry photos of outlines of alleged ships. I remember even at that time, and I was very young at the time, and I was still in my formative ages, it occurred to me that, you know, they were promoting different blurry photographs that were mutually inconsistent. They were mutually exclusive. They looked like two different kinds of ships.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, do you remember the {{w|Leonard Nimoy}} show; what was that show?<br />
<br />
S: ''{{w|In Search of... (TV series)|In Search of...}}''<br />
<br />
J: "In Search Of." Remember the cheesy program they had on that?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it was a horrible, horrible show.<br />
<br />
J: I used to buy that show hook, line, and sinker when I was a kid.<br />
<br />
S: That was pure mystery mongering, that show. It's really terrible.<br />
<br />
J: I was so young and stupid, though, I just loved it. I believed every frickin' thing that happened on there.<br />
<br />
S: Well now ...<br />
<br />
P: If you watch that show now, it makes you sick.<br />
<br />
S: It is. I mean, now you're like, "Oh my goodness".<br />
<br />
B: Of course, Jay. It was Spock. Come on!<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I know. Hey, come on.<br />
<br />
P: It's true.<br />
<br />
S: So, they claimed there was this big ship on top of Mount Ararat, but it's in a militarily sensitive area of Turkey, so they've never let expeditions go up there. Well, these days, you don't really need to send an expedition to the top of a mountain. You can just ...<br />
<br />
B: Satellite.<br />
<br />
S: ... position a satellite over there. Exactly.<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys been playing with Google Earth? That is awesome.<br />
<br />
J: I love it. What a awesome application.<br />
<br />
S: You could view the entire world with a mosaic of satellite images. Of course the first thing everybody does is find their own house, which is funny. It's fun to do that. So anyway, we have pretty high detailed satellite images of pretty much most of the surface of the world. So, some scientists poring over satellite images &mdash; and this has been happening for a while now; this is just the latest in this phenomenon &mdash; think they see Noah's Ark in these satellite images. The one being promoted now &mdash; we'll have it on our web site &mdash; it's pretty pathetic. To me, it looks like a natural wind-swept mountain edge, mountain geological feature. It's only "boat-shaped" in the most generic sense, in that it's basically a very elongated kind of oval shape.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, that turned out to actually be a mobile home with a Chevy pickup parked out front.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think you may be right.<br />
<br />
E: Not surprising.<br />
<br />
S: So, again, promoters of the ''possibility'' that this could be Noah's Ark emphasize the similarities, the fact that this is sort of vaguely hull-shaped. And they are very dismissive of the apparent inconsistencies. For example, it's twice as big as the boat that is described in Genesis, and it's also the wrong shape. It's not more of a box shape that is described and that has been classically interpreted. It is more traditionally oval-shaped, pointy at the "bow and stern". But they say, "but it has the right ratio". So they're impressed by the right ratio, but they're not concerned by the fact that it's twice as big as it's supposed to be and it's the wrong shape. It also doesn't have any features that would distinguish it from a natural geological shape. And looking at it, you know, it looks like a piece of mountain. Have you guys seen this picture?<br />
<br />
B: No.<br />
<br />
S: I sent it to you.<br />
<br />
P: I saw it.<br />
<br />
B: You did?<br />
<br />
P: I saw it on television; yes, I would agree.<br />
<br />
E: I saw it when it came out.<br />
<br />
P: I saw it. It looks like nothing.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
P: It's worse than the {{w|Cydonia (region of Mars)|Face on Mars}}.<br />
<br />
E: Much worse.<br />
<br />
S: These guys say &mdash; it's the same thing as the Face on Mars or the canals on Mars or whatever.<br />
<br />
P: It's just ridiculous.<br />
<br />
S: You know, using either planes for fly-over and now, of course, satellite images to try to identify features on the ground is used commonly, but archaeologists and geologists, etc., would tell you that you always need on-the-ground confirmation, because you just can't tell what things are from these birds-eye view two-dimensional images. You just can't tell what they are. So, without on-the-ground confirmation, this is just another splotch on a satellite image.<br />
<br />
J: Of course it is. Of course.<br />
<br />
S: And it is no different than the Face on Mars or the pyramids of Mars or whatever.<br />
<br />
P: It's ridiculous.<br />
<br />
J: My question is, why even bring it up? Why make any kind of point out of it until you send somebody there? At this point, who cares that they saw something that might look like a ship.<br />
<br />
P: Because a lot of people put a lot of their lives in this sort of faith, Jay. It means a lot to a lot of people.<br />
<br />
S: Right. A responsible scientist would do that, Jay, would mount the expedition, would get the higher resolution images or whatever before going public with this. Again, this is really just sensationalism.<br />
<br />
J: But Steve, is this ...<br />
<br />
P: It hardly matters. It hardly matters in my opinion, too. If you send somebody up there and they don't find anything, they'll just say the Turks moved it; they're protecting it; they're Muslims; they burned it. It doesn't matter.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah. What will happen is it'll turn into like, "Oh, here's another shred of proof that it exists", but no one'll ever bother to prove it or disprove it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it won't matter to the hard-core true believers, but to the public at large it will marginalize it. It's like with the Face on Mars. It was the same thing. You had the sort of ...<br />
<br />
P: The picture should marginalize it. Excuse me. The picture should marginalize it, so...<br />
<br />
S: You're correct.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But perhaps you may give people too much credit. But it should.<br />
<br />
P: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
S: But I remember with the face on Mars, the original images were very low resolution.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: You could really only see half the face.<br />
<br />
E: It was in 1977?<br />
<br />
S: It was just vaguely reminiscent of a human face.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And then we saw the high-resolution images.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Nothing like!<br />
<br />
B: A joke!<br />
<br />
S: It just looked like a natural mountain plateau, like a mesa. Really, you could see in very high detail that there was nothing. It was completely natural. There was nothing about which looked anything like a human face. It was just really the trick of shadows and the particular angle that the previous lower-resolution pictures were taken.<br />
<br />
E: And then you go to find David Hoagland, who perpetuated this myth, and then they go to ask him a question about these new photos, and he's nowhere to be found or to comment on them.<br />
<br />
B: That's not true. He made comments.<br />
<br />
S: His comment was: NASA, after their satellite, their probe, got all the information they could out of that region, dropped an atom bomb on it and blew it up.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, is that his explanation?<br />
<br />
S: That is what he said.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
E: That makes more sense than his original theory.<br />
<br />
S: He also said, and others tried to dismiss the high-resolution photos by saying "Well, they've been manipulated. They've been photographically enhanced." Well, first of all, that's not true. They haven't been manipulated. They were just processed, because like all cameras, all digital cameras take raw photos, even if you have like an SLR digital camera, it takes pictures in a raw format, and then it has to do some kind of processing to give it color and whatever, and you save it in a format like a JPEG or some kind of more user-friendly format. Well, it was the same thing. They just did sort of the minimal kind of processing that you would do to any digital photo, but it wasn't altered in any way. It was also completely hypocritical, because they were okay with the manipulations that were done with the earlier photographs. The earlier photographs were even more filtered than the newer ones that they were dismissing.<br />
<br />
S: Steve, if they hit with a nuke, wouldn't there be a crater there?<br />
<br />
S: Whatever, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: It's so ridiculous! What did he think? It just took like a brushstroke to it and softened it?<br />
<br />
S: After reading Hoagland and listening to this guy I'm convinced that he's diagnosable. I don't think this guy has any real connection to reality.<br />
<br />
J: No.<br />
<br />
E: Well plus he's been caught in lie after lie about working for NASA and these sorts of things, as well, that NASA consulted him for his expertise when it turns out that never happened. So he's a very shady character, this person.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, definitely. I doubt that we'll hear anything more about Noah's Ark, but this is the latest flap. Again, it's just the same thing again &mdash; indistinct photo that's vaguely suggestive but not at all compelling. If anything further comes of it we will certainly keep you updated.<br />
<br />
=== Endangered Species Act Defenders <small>(24:22)</small>===<br />
<br />
P: Steve, before we move on, I just want to say a quick word about our previous topic about trying to protect science and in the Endangered Species Act and federal research in general. While I could not find in this short time who sponsored the proposed changes to the act, I imagine it was amalgam, the guys that are trying to stop it in the House are Henry Waxman, Democrat from California, Bart Gordon, Democrat from Tennessee. Their bill is called "Restore Scientific Integrity to Federal Research and Policy Making Act," and what I noticed was that in the Senate, the similar bill was written by and is mainly supported by Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois. He's the same guy that is behind the dietary supplement safety act of 2003. He hasn't been able to get that one passed yet, either. I'll tell you, when it comes to science, this guy is always right on the mark.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
P: He's trying to preserve the scientific integrity in federal research in general, and that dietary supplement safety act is essential.<br />
<br />
S: It's a good start. It's not enough. It doesn't go far enough, but it's a good start.<br />
<br />
P: It's a good start, and he can't even get that passed. He must have a science background, or he's listening to the right people or something.<br />
<br />
S: I think he's one of the few scientifically literate people on the Hill.<br />
<br />
J: I heard he listens to our podcast.<br />
<br />
S: Is that right?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah. Yup, yup.<br />
<br />
S: Senator Durbin, you've got my support on these issues.<br />
<br />
E: I was just inviting him to send us his email, send us an email comment.<br />
<br />
P: Yes! Absolutely. We want to hear his comments.<br />
<br />
E: As we invite everyone to send us your comments, both good, bad, and indifferent.<br />
<br />
S: We're not quite to emails, yet, but we'll get there in a second.<br />
<br />
=== Bigfoot or Bison <small>(26:04)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: One final item before we do move onto the emails: I was doing some follow-up research on the Bigfoot episode that we did, and the Bigfoot proponent was claiming that there's research out there with hairs that are convincing, unidentified primate hairs, etc. My research had never uncovered any hairs that were compelling. What I did find was a recent hair analysis. A few months ago in the Yukon, in Canada, there was a Bigfoot sighting, even involving some footprints. A few people thought they saw this large, hairy creature. Later investigation at the site uncovered a tuft of hair.<br />
<br />
P: This was a few months ago, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Gee, weren't you up in the Yukon a few months ago?<br />
<br />
J: You can't prove that.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
E: Sure we can. We got the hair.<br />
<br />
S: A DNA analyst agreed to analyze the hair. This was David Coltman, a geneticist. Basically agreed to do DNA analysis on the hair. Fortunately, there was some DNA. Again, hair itself does not contain DNA. You need some of the follicle, what they call the medula, of the hair root, and that contains some DNA. He was able to extract some DNA from that, and the answer is &mdash; what do you guys think it was?<br />
<br />
J: It absolutely proved Bigfoot's existence, of course.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: It was a bison. No big surprise.<br />
<br />
P: Aaaaahh.<br />
<br />
S: Which is very common, actually. Bigfoot hair, in Canada, often turns out to be bison. This is a very common result. But interestingly he discovered something else, too. He said "You know, it was particularly difficult to amplify the DNA from the sample that we had. That suggests that that hair sample ..."<br />
<br />
B: It's old.<br />
<br />
S: "... was very old, or that it had been treated in some way."<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
P: Aaaaaahh.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
B: No way!<br />
<br />
S: So he suspects that someone had used bison pelt to make a Bigfoot costume, basically. That is the implication of this. It wasn't just a fresh bison sample. They didn't see a bison walk by and thought it was a big foot. Either way, that is the state of the hair analysis for Bigfoot. There are no validated hair samples. And what Coltman said was, well if we did find hair from a Bigfoot, what we would expect is that it would have a lot of primate features, but wouldn't specifically match a chimp or a gorilla or a person, but it would be &mdash; it would look &mdash; have clear signs that it belonged to some primate species. Nothing like that has ever been found. There are still a number of hair samples that have no DNA, so they're just hair samples, and believers put these forward as compelling evidence, because, whatever, they look similar to each other and whatever. They make some very handwaving arguments that really don't relate to any gold standard or any solid evidence. But, to date, there's no hair that had amplifiable DNA that did not match a known local animal, like, say, the bison.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve. Is this specifically talking about the hair sample that the guest that you had on was referring to?<br />
<br />
S: No. He did not refer to any specific hair samples during the show. He just said sort of generally there are hair samples that could not be matched or whatever. So my later, more detailed research did not reveal that. I did uncover that ones that were put forward that have been DNA analyzed, have been shown to be bison and other known species. This was the most recent one, this one in the Yukon.<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>(29:58)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Well let's move onto emails. Those who listen to the show, last week I noted that we had only one email in the intervening week. It turns out that Bob was holding out on me. Bob's been getting a lot of the email that comes directly off of the website that wasn't sent to me specifically. But he did forward all those emails to me, and we did have on top of that a pulse of emails. So we have about a dozen or so in the last week. We don't have time to read all them. I did pick out a few to read. Maybe we'll get to some of the other ones in later shows.<br />
<br />
=== Cancer Quacks <small>(30:32)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So the first email comes from Australia. This is from a gentleman who signs his name as Yucasan. He says "Dr. Chachoua in Australia has contended that his serum cure for cancer has been refused testing by the establishment. He claims to have been rejected out of hand although his lectures were widespread, and some were given before scientific bodies. Not being an informed biochemist or anything near the medic profession, your answers are solicited. Another question is on spontaneous remission arising from bacterial infections, usually with high fever. Not practiced, but Coley's toxin were once used with recorded results. With lawsuits abounding today it is no wonder bacterial toxins are no longer administered." (That's actually not true; I'll tell about that in a second.) "Also, some remissions were recorded with the accidental use of smallpox vaccine. I'm trying to avoid quackery while looking for effective treatments. Your comments, please." Well, starting with Dr. Chachoua. This guy is clearly in the mold of a group of cancer quacks. What these people do is prey upon people who have either cancer, whether it's incurable or not. Sometimes they may lure people away from treatments that actually have a chance of working. And they basically claim that they know the true underlying cause of cancer, and it is something which is treatable by their particular cocktail or treatment. Ones that are that are well known are Lauren Day, Stanislav Brezinski, Hulda Clark, and this guy Sam Chuachoua.<br />
<br />
P: Hm.<br />
<br />
S: So these are four of probably the more prominent ones. There's a good article describing the commonalities between these four on the Australian skeptic sites. I link to that from the notes page for this podcast. The Australian Council Against Health Fraud &mdash; they have a very good overview article about this. And they point out a few things: the fact that they all claim that they're miraculously effective like either greater than 90%, greater than 99% effective cure is being suppressed by the establishment. And that's the only way to explain how a cure, which is so effective, would not be generally or widely known. It's pure nonsense, and I wrote an article about this that actually was a book chapter in "Science Meets Alternative Medicine" a number of years ago, really describing why in detail that the establishment suppressing a known cure for cancer story is completely illogical and untenable. If there were such a cure, first of all nobody would have the power or the ability to keep it out of every research lab in the world. Somebody would be able to show and prove that it worked. Also, if there were a cure for cancer, that would somehow tell us something intrinsic about the cause and the nature of cancer itself. You just couldn't avoid it with all of the cancer research that's going on. They also commit these your broad, grand conspiracy theories. You would have to involve large numbers of people and institutions and governments over many generations systematically suppressing this scientific knowledge without anyone ever coming out. So it's completely absurd. Also, their arguments for why the pharmaceutical companies would suppress their cures don't make any sense. They said because they would lose money from their drug cures, when, in fact, wouldn't they just market these as cures for cancer? And even if they couldn't get a patent on it, imagine the PR value to the pharmaceutical company that cured cancer. Who would turn that down?<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: Right? <br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: Then they would say they would lose money off their drugs with patents, but you know what? First of all, that argument's absurd, but it's not only absurd, after 20 years it's completely untenable, because the patents on all of their drugs would have run out over that course of time. And why would they be researching new ones while there's this cure for cancer hanging out there? Also, the final thing is, no company's going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars researching a cure for cancer they have no intention of marketing. So, you might say that they haven't done the research, but you can't say they know about it and are suppressing it. It makes absolutely no sense. Anyway, there are other major problems with it as well that I won't go into.<br />
<br />
B: Imagine if it was found out "Well, here's the company that cured cancer and then didn't tell anybody!"<br />
<br />
S: And hid it from the world.<br />
<br />
B: Hello and goodbye! Done. Over and out.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right, yeah. It just doesn't make any sense. The article that I referred to also points out the fact that the four cancer quacks that are mentioned all say that "The establishment theory of cancer is wrong. My theory of cancer is correct." But all of their theories are different and mutually exclusive, yet they all support each other. The only thing they have in common is that they're antiestablishment.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The fact that one person is promoting an infectious theory of cancer, another one is promoting &mdash; Burzynski says that people with cancer lack these proteins called antineoplastins, others are saying it's nutritional, this guy says it's an immune deficiency. So they all have these mutually exclusive, different theories of cancer, but they're all happy with each other as long they're antiestablishment. But at least three of them have to be wrong. Right? If any one of them is correct, the other three have to be completely 100% wrong, although I think it's likely that all four of them are completely 100% wrong. The other thing that they have in common is the utter lack of scientific evidence to support their theories, despite the fact that they make tons of money. This one guy, Chachoua, just made $11 million in a lawsuit against ...<br />
<br />
J: Cha ching!<br />
<br />
S: ... right, against a university, against Mount Sinai. Basically, he claimed that they had a breach of contract. He had a contract with them to do research; they breached their contract; and some gullible jury gave this guy $11 million. So he can't say he doesn't have the money to do the research.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: That theory falls on deaf ears after a while, as well. It's the typical quack clinic pattern: fantastical claim, antiestablishment conspiracy theories, claims that you're too busy curing people and saving lives to actually do the research or publish anything in the scientific literature, and there is a conspiracy against you, anyway. And then you fight politically to subvert the scientific process.<br />
<br />
P: General science illiteracy causes these ridiculous jury verdicts.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Right.<br />
<br />
P: It's outrageous.<br />
<br />
S: Like the jury that awarded away a million dollars because an MRI took her psychic powers away.<br />
<br />
P: It's outrageous.<br />
<br />
J: That's unreal.<br />
<br />
P: Steve, I have my own ideas, but you're the doctor here. Why do you think cancer, in particular, is so susceptible to this sort of pseudoscience and quackery.<br />
<br />
S: It's the psychology of it. It's such a frightening disease. The more people are frightened, the more they're going to be desperate and flock into the arms of people who are selling false hope. Diseases that we can cure or that are not that bad aren't as susceptible to this. The second half of his question is Coley's toxins. Now this is something that goes back a hundred years. Dr. Coley made a legitimate observation that bacteria produce proteins which cause tumors to die. In fact, he was the first one to identify a substance which later became known as tumor necrosis factor. It is a substance which is secreted by cells in the immune system in response to tumors and infection. It's part of our immune reaction. It's how we kill bad cells. You can produce this with bacterial infections. The problem with this is that as a therapeutic agency, is that it may cause part of a tumor to necrose, but it doesn't get rid of the cancer. Just killing off part of the tumor doesn't really have much of an effect. Also, these toxins are not targeting the cancer. They can kill other cells, as well. So, it's a fairly toxic and ineffective treatment for cancer. The promoters of Coley's toxins say "Oh, yeah, it's just the pharmaceutical industry is suppressing this because they want to sell their drugs." But, again, if it worked, it would've been a legitimate avenue of research, and pharmaceutical industry and cancer research institutes, etc., would have found uses for this. This idea is not totally absurd. It's just the people who are selling Coley's toxins, they're just selling snake oil. What they are selling and what they're promoting is not anything which is scientific. The writer, however, Yucasan, did make that one comment that: "bacterial toxins are no longer administered." Actually, botox is botulinum toxin, is a bacterial toxin, and it has, actually, a very broad and growing range of therapeutic effects, and I inject myself. It has a number of neurological uses for certain movement disorders &mdash; dystonia's etc., and it's actually a lot of active research for chronic neuropathic pain. So, I don't think as as a general principle we're adverse to using bacterial toxins. They just have to be used scientifically.<br />
<br />
=== Live Reptile Births <small>(40:09)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The next email comes from a gentleman by the name of Adam Stewart Smith. Adam writes a very long email, again, it will be on our notes page. I can't read the whole thing, but I'll hit some of the highlights. He says "I am a PhD researcher in paleontology at the University College Dublin, Ireland. I specialize in plesiosaurs, a group of extinct prehistoric aquatic reptiles. I'm sure you are aware ..."<br />
<br />
P: Nessie's a plesiosaur, by the way. That's confirmed. <br />
<br />
S: Yes, he goes on "I'm sure you're aware that plesiosaurs are frequently associate with mythical lake sea monsters, most substantial sightings just as Nessie."<br />
<br />
P: There you go. Told ya'.<br />
<br />
S: So he says "I'm actually emailing with regard to the science or fiction article of skepticast number 29, February 8, 2006. The theme was animals. I got it wrong, as usual. I was fooled by option three. The statement 'a new species of lizard was discovered in the jungles of New Guinea that gives birth to live young' was actually fictional. In the ensuing discussion there was a brief debate as to the possibility of reptiles giving birth to live young, and how huge the news would be if one were discovered." So he wants to add his two cents, basically, to that part of the discussion. He says "In fact, viviparity has been firmly established in a number of extinct and extant groups of reptiles." So that's giving birth to live young. "Fossil evidence, i.e. gravid mothers, indicates that ichthyosaurs, fishlike marine reptiles, and mosasaurs, marine lizards, both certainly gave birth to live young. No direct evidence is known for plesiosaurs, but their close relatives were recently reported ..." (and he references a Nature article) "... with embryos in the abdominal region. So plesiosaurs were probably also viviparous." He also says there are number of live species &mdash; species of living snake families are also known to give birth to live young, like the Boas. So he just wanted to add that there are some living and extinct reptiles. So it wouldn't be that outrageous if a new lizard were discovered that gave birth to live young, since that adaptation has arisen multiple independent times within the class of reptiles.<br />
<br />
B: Well, I don't feel so bad now about getting that one wrong.<br />
<br />
S: Right. It still was wrong. It didn't happen, and it still would be news, but his point is well taken.<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(42:26)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Email number three is more of a comment than a question. This comes from David Jones. Davy Jones!<br />
<br />
J: Hello, guv'nor.<br />
<br />
S: He says "Hi! I'm from the UK, and I listen to the podcast. Excellent stuff, keep it up. By the way, there's a creeping creationism in UK education."<br />
<br />
B: Education? Ah.<br />
<br />
S: "At least in the US, you managed to get it declared unconstitutional. In the UK, not having a written constitution and a supreme court, we're at the whim of the executive and its short-term political concerns. Do carry on, David Jones." Well, he's right! It's interesting. A lot Americans maybe don't realize this, but there's been a lot of debate recently about the role of the Supreme Court versus the Executive branch and the Legislative branch, all peculiar to our country that in the UK, there's no constitution, and they don't have a supreme court, which can declare laws unconstitutional. They don't have a judicial branch, which oversees their legislative branch. The legislative branch has the final say on what is law, on what is legal, and they can change that just by passing new laws.<br />
<br />
J: So I would really like to know &mdash; this is very interesting, this letter. David, I'd like to know more about this. Why don't you send us another email and let us know some things that have been passed that have been bothering you or that might be skeptically charged, that we might want to discuss.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. What is the state of the creationism versus evolution battle in the UK? We have obviously reported quite a bit on it, especially in the context of intelligent design in this country over the last year. It's been very active with the Dover trial, etc. Do keep us updated on what's going on in the UK. And maybe we'll ...<br />
<br />
J: Steve, he might be an interesting guest at some point, too.<br />
<br />
S: Perhaps.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, definitely.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, David, have your people call my people, okay?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, we'll do lunch or something.<br />
<br />
P: Instead of a potter.<br />
<br />
=== Artist vs. Believer <small>(44:14)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: The final email that I'll read this week comes from Raphael. He says "Dear fellow skeptics. I listen to your podcast and find it to be one of the few intelligent podcasts out there." Well thank you. I think there are probably a couple others.<br />
<br />
J: Thank you!<br />
<br />
S: "My question has to do with my profession. I am an artist, painter, and I find that very often when I engage people in conversation and they find out I am a secular humanist and a skeptic, they ask 'How can you be an artist and not believe?' Why do people assume that artistic talent has anything to do with the supernatural." Well, I guess the answer to that is I don't know. I don't why people would assume that. I guess they think that more rational people would tend to be scientific, and that artistic expressiveness would tend to go along with more of a spirituality or spiritual belief. I don't know if there's any data to back that up.<br />
<br />
J: As if humans couldn't come up with unique ideas on their own, right?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. I think that people underestimate the amount of creativity that's involved in science. It is a lot of rigorous, detailed work, but the thing that separates out the brilliant scientist, the successful career scientists from the drudge workers is creativity. It is exactly that creativity, the ability to think of new things in new ways, which is similar, very similar, I think, to artists, who have to think of things in new ways. They just have different talents that they apply that creativity to.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(45:47)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Let's move on to Science or Fiction. <br />
<br />
(intro)<br />
<br />
S: So every week I come up with three science news items. Two of them are genuine, two are science, and one is fiction. One I have made up out of whole cloth. The challenge is to figure out which one is fake. I often have a theme. The theme for this week, Bob, you're going to like this one.<br />
<br />
B: Kay.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, God!<br />
<br />
S: The theme for this week is microbes.<br />
<br />
B: Cool!<br />
<br />
J: I hate microbes.<br />
<br />
P: Nano-sized microbes?<br />
<br />
S: Microscopic size microbes.<br />
<br />
B: The macroscopic microbes. They're called "macrobes."<br />
<br />
J: Now, Steve, you're talking about like bacteria and not like ...<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Exactly.<br />
<br />
J: Okay, just (''unintelligible'') Yup.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, ready? Item number one &mdash; again, two are real; one is fiction. Item number one: newly bioengineered bacteria can make usable gasoline from plastic waste. Item number two: 3.5 billion years ago methane-producing bacteria produced global warming, which was helpful for life's early development. And item number three: computer models predict that earth microbes may have seeded life on Saturn's moon Titan.<br />
<br />
J: Wow! Ah, ah hah hah hah.<br />
<br />
S: Jay. You spoke first, so why don't you go first.<br />
<br />
J: And begin. Okay, so, my gut reaction, when I heard the very first one about the microbes being able to convert plastic into gasoline, although I don't believe it is physically impossible, that's the one I really just don't think is holding any merit right now. "Why?" you ask. It's too good to be true. That's it. That's my gut reaction. I really can't prove or disprove anything, obviously, but that's what I'm going with: number one.<br />
<br />
S: The too good to be true hypotheis.<br />
<br />
J: The too good to be true. Is there a logical fallacy in that?<br />
<br />
P: Personal credulity?<br />
<br />
S: Argument from final consequences? <br />
<br />
B: No, when you're making an educated guess, you can go off of that. That's a legitimate thing, because you're reaching for anything to go off of.<br />
<br />
S: It's a red flag. Something that sounds too good to be true is certainly a red flag.<br />
<br />
B: So there you go. But don't forget, don't forget, though, Steve could hope that you do that and trick you that way.<br />
<br />
J: I expect him to do that. But I also expect him to expect that I'm going to do that, and then it kind of kicks itself out. <br />
<br />
B: Ah, okay. Ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
S: It's an infinite regression of expectations. Okay, Perry, go ahead.<br />
<br />
P: Okay, I'm going to say that number three doesn't sound right to me. I don't &mdash; the other two sound plausible. This one sounds the least plausible.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
P: I'm not an astronomer and a biologist, and I don't play one on this podcast. It simply has the patina of the least plausible.<br />
<br />
S: All right.<br />
<br />
J: But, Steve, in number three, that they have any proof, that they're just speculating, right?<br />
<br />
B: Well "computer model.":<br />
<br />
S: Computer models predict that Earth microbes may have seeded life on Saturn's moon Titan.<br />
<br />
P: I don't trust them computers.<br />
<br />
S: All right, Bob. What do you think?<br />
<br />
B: Okay, let's see. Microbes &mdash; did you say they bioengineered microbes?<br />
<br />
S: Yup. Newly bioengineered bacteria can make usable gasoline ...<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ... from plastic waste.<br />
<br />
B: That sounds familiar. I think I read something about that. So I'm going to say that's true. That's ringing a big bell for me. The third one, that computer models predict that microbes might have seeded Titan &mdash; I recently heard or read something about that as well. But you had a key phrase, here, Steve. Let me clarify. You said "may have seeded" or "could have"?<br />
<br />
S: Both would be okay.<br />
<br />
B: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: Actually, it's "may" and "could." They both apply.<br />
<br />
B: Okay. I think I saw something on that recently as well, too. I even remember some sort of graphic simulation of how it could've happened. The second one, though, initially sounded right, but I think methane's wrong. These microbes did induce some sort of global warming, and they were big contributors to the content of our atmosphere as it is today, but I don't think it was methane. Let's see, so I'm going to go with two.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, so we got one for one, one for two, and one for three. An even split. Evan, unfortunately, had to step away, so he's dodging this one. So no tiebreaker. Allright, so, where should we start?<br />
<br />
J: Which one do you pick, Steve?<br />
<br />
B: Forget it.<br />
<br />
S: Let's start with number two.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, crap!<br />
<br />
J: Ah, ha, ha, ha.<br />
<br />
S: That one is true. That is science.<br />
<br />
B: Was it methane?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, it was methane. Both fossil evidence and models show that a lot of bacteria do produce methane as a byproduct, as a waste product.<br />
<br />
J: I'm living proof of that.<br />
<br />
S: And that's true. Bacterial-produced methane is a major contributor of flatulence, and they do put that into the atmosphere. They are the major contributor of methane in the atmosphere. What they figured out also is that that was an important component of global warming. This, of course &mdash; most of global warming is actually good for our planet. It keeps us from being frigid. We would be much less hospitable to life if we didn't have the global warming that we do. The new bit, too, is the 3.5 billion years. They kind of knew that this thing was happening, that bacterial-produced methane was warming the atmosphere early on. But there's now evidence that this is occurring about 700 million years earlier than they had previously estimated ...<br />
<br />
B: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: ... pushing back further to the dawn of our planet. 3.5 billion years is pretty close to the beginning of life on this planet. The planet itself formed about 4.5 billion years ago. So that one is true. Let's go from there to number one. Who said number one was ...?<br />
<br />
J: I did.<br />
<br />
S: Jay said that's fiction. Jay, you are correct, this week. That is fiction.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, my God! Ding ding ding ding ding ding.<br />
<br />
S: Congratulations.<br />
<br />
P: That's impossible!<br />
<br />
J: (''unintelligible'') Florida!<br />
<br />
B: Jay!<br />
<br />
S: This is, however, and I'm not surprised this rang a bell for you, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: Ah you bastard!<br />
<br />
S: Bacteria do metabolize a lot of organic compounds and a lot of fossil fuels. There are bacteria that can eat gasoline.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And in fact, they're using those &mdash; and this may have been what rang a bell for you. They're trying to use them to clean up oil spills and stuff.<br />
<br />
J: We've been hearing that one for years.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so there are &mdash; and there are also bacteria that eat waste. In fact, there was a new &mdash; this is kind of where I got this from &mdash; they have bioengineered a bacteria that could eat styrofoam and turn it into a biodegradable waste product. There are also bacteria that can make natural gas, like methane. So you can use it to make some fossil fuels &mdash; natural gas &mdash; to eat some kinds of waste, to eat gasoline. Plastic is natural.<br />
<br />
J: Oil-based.<br />
<br />
S: It's oil-based, so it's not unreasonable that bacteria can eat plastic. This may become true one day. I don't know. But I could not find anything that this is actually happened to date. So that was made up.<br />
<br />
J: So what do I get?<br />
<br />
S: You get a hearty handshake and congratulations, and you get bragging rights for six days.<br />
<br />
J: Do I get a laurel and hardy handshake?<br />
<br />
P: A laurel and hardy handshake. Jay, you jumped on my line.<br />
<br />
J: Sorry, buddy.<br />
<br />
S: Number three is very interesting. This is true. Number three is true. What they did was they said "would it be possible for microbes to survive the trip from earth to any of the places in our solar system where it's possible for there to be life &mdash; for life to then take a foothold.?" Specifically they looked at Titan, and they looked at Europa. They didn't look at Enceladus, because that information's too new. What they found was that microbes could in fact survive, that the speed at which a meteor from Earth would strike Titan would be slow enough that microbes could survive the trip. On Europa, however, they predict they probably wouldn't survive.<br />
<br />
B: Why?<br />
<br />
S: That's a good question. The reason is that Europa is close to Jupiter, closer than Titan is to Saturn, and that Jupiter's a lot bigger.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: And the gravity of Jupiter would accelerate the meteor ...<br />
<br />
B: Ah.<br />
<br />
S: It would hit about twice as fast, and would kill from heat, it said, and the impact would probably kill or destroy any microbes on impact. So, probably could not seed Europa with Earth microbes, but we probably could seed Titan with Earth microbes. The other aspect of this modeling was they looked at, specifically, the debris that was probably kicked up from the Earth by the meteor or commet that hit the Earth 65 million years ago and was probably responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species at that time &mdash; the cretaceous extinction. So the computer models predict that probably about 20 chunks of rock from the Earth would have hit Titan after that impact, and that it would've taken about a million years to make the journey.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
J: How about if the exact opposite thing happened?<br />
<br />
S: Well, Jay, yeah, that's not new. If you remember going back a number of years, five or six years, scientists found an asteroid in Antarctica, a meteorite in Antarctica, that was from Mars, and they thought they might have seen like fossilized microbes in the meteorite.<br />
<br />
J: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: And they think maybe life got an early foothold on Mars and then was seeded to the Earth. That claim still remains controversial. Those fossilized microbes could just be air bubbles or some kind of geological formation. It really hasn't been proven or disproven at this point, but never really gained general acceptance upon a peer review. But the theory of panspermia or one planet seeding another remains viable. It's possible that any planet that could have harbored life in the early solar system through planetary impacts could have seeded any or all of the other bodies in the solar system with microbes.<br />
<br />
J: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: If we go to Titan and we find microbes, and they have DNA, well ...<br />
<br />
B: Then we'll know.<br />
<br />
S: ... then that probably came from Earth.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So it's interesting, and the seeding could have taken place in more than one time. Mars could have seeded Earth, which than could have later seeded Titan or Mars or whatever in any pattern. It's also possible, and this is where it gets really interesting, that microbes from another solar system could have seeded our solar system. This is where you get the panspermia theory, that life in microbial, dormant form, hiding inside chunks of ice and rock, can be spreading throughout the entire galaxy.<br />
<br />
P: I could have relatives on Titan?<br />
<br />
S: Very distant relatives, yes.<br />
<br />
B: Very distant.<br />
<br />
P: Very distant relatives.<br />
<br />
S: So Jay wins the prize this week for being skeptical of the gasoline-making bacteria, but the other two things were, in fact, correct.<br />
<br />
P: Jay, did you use your telepathic powers to cheat?<br />
<br />
J: No, I paid Steve five bucks for the answer about two hours ago.<br />
<br />
P: Excellent. Excellent.<br />
<br />
S: I'll start the bids for next week's answers.<br />
<br />
J: Steve's cheap, you know.<br />
<br />
P: Next.<br />
<br />
== DNA vs. the Mormons <small>(58:23)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: I think we have time for one more item before we sign off. Actually, I've been holding onto this for a little while. I just haven't had time to squeak it into the podcast. Bob, you sent me this one.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The article is called "Bedrock of Faith is Jolted." Why don't you give us a summary of that.<br />
<br />
B: This is very interesting. I found this at {http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/16/local/me-mormon16|latimes.com}, by William Lobdell. The tagline here: "DNA tests contradict Mormon scripture. The church says the studies are being twisted to attack its beliefs." I thought it was a very interesting story of science actually obliterating people's faith in their religion.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
B: It just seems like something that should happen a little more often, but it doesn't. The way human psychology &mdash; people will just hold onto their cherised beliefs regardless of what science says. But the idea was &mdash; let me give you a little background of the Mormon church, here. According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an angel name Moroni &mdash; very interesting name for an angel I thought.<br />
<br />
P: Moroni?<br />
<br />
B: Mor-own-ee.<br />
<br />
P: That's an angel or a mob guy?<br />
<br />
S: Mor-own-eye, I think.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, that sounds a little more religious &mdash; mor-own-eye.<br />
<br />
P: It's about time you gotta pay up for the big man upstairs.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
B: So this angel led Joseph Smith in 1827 to a divine set of golden plates that were apparently buried near his house in New York.<br />
<br />
S: How convenient.<br />
<br />
B: Now, what are the odds of a divine set of golden plates near your house, come on, buried in the ground? Pretty amazing! So God essentially provides this guy with also a pair of glasses, also pretty weird, and seer stones that allowed him to translate the reformed Egyptian writings on these plates, and he turned this into the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ. In this book they spend a lot of time talking about the tribe of Jews that sailed from Jerusalem and came to the New World in 600 BC and split into two warring factions, and these warring factions obliterated each other. One group remained called the Lamanites. They remained, and they were kind of like the evil victors. For whatever reason, they were the bad victors. The defeated tribes were called the Nephites, who were, of course, "pure," and officially, before 1981, they weren't called pure, they were called "white." The idol-worshiping Lamanites received, apparently, the curse of blackness, turning their skin dark. So there is definitely some bigotry in here.<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm. By the way, just before you go on, Joseph Smith had to give the golden tablets back to the angel Moroni.<br />
<br />
B: Aaaahhhh.<br />
<br />
S: So he didn't have them as physical evidence for the encounter, only his word for it.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, I wanted to go see them in his museum.<br />
<br />
P: You don't think you're going to keep them golden tablets, do ya?<br />
<br />
B: Well, did he take any pictures of them?<br />
<br />
S: No, sadly, this was before modern photography.<br />
<br />
B: That's too bad. Well now with modern technology ...<br />
<br />
S: He didn't anticipate DNA technology when he made his claims about this lost tribe of Israel.<br />
<br />
E: Doh!<br />
<br />
J: You know what? I'm going to get drunk, go on a bender, walk into the woods, come back out, and just start a religion.<br />
<br />
J: Jay, do you know what? If you had enough charisma and you were just psychotic enough, you could do it.<br />
<br />
P: You could do it. Easily, easily.<br />
<br />
J: I know. How silly is that thought? Just think about it. All the people that have done that throughout history.<br />
<br />
P: Jay, and even if you weren't psychotic and didn't know much charisma, you could still get tax exemption.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
P: That's exactly true.<br />
<br />
J: I gotta work on that one.<br />
<br />
B: Now this ...<br />
<br />
S: So, the bottom line, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: Let me continue here. This 175-year-old transcription is regarded as literal and without error. It is pretty much the transcribed word of God, and it's without fault. So missionaries would go to the Pacific Islands, and this would be their main selling point: "You are the lost tribe of Israel. You have a special place. You'll have a special place with God, and you're special." So this was like their prime selling point, and there are millions of followers, literally millions of people became Mormons because they believed that they were this lost tribe of Christ. And now, of course, with modern DNA technology they've examined a lot of these Pacific Islanders, and they've determined that, no, they are not &mdash; they're from Asia, they're not from the Middle East, which pretty much in just one fell swoop, just blows that argument right out of the water. They cannot possibly be the lost tribe of Israel, and a lot of people are just having &mdash; you could imagine &mdash; your whole religion is pretty much torn from under you with just this one test, pretty much. If you think this book is the literal word of God, and it says A, B, and C, and science says "no, there is no A, B, and C", what are you to believe?<br />
<br />
P: I haven't noticed the Church of Mormon disbanding.<br />
<br />
B: No, oh no. It would take even more than that.<br />
<br />
S: Well, officially, their responses is ...<br />
<br />
J: "Don't you believe-it!"<br />
<br />
S: Officially, the Mormon church says that "nothing in the Mormon scriptures is incompatible with DNA evidence, and that the genetic studies are being twisted to attack the church." Okay. Ignore the man behind the curtain.<br />
<br />
J: Ah, of course. That's that evil, old, pesky science, again, getting in the way. You know what is so funny? Do you know what I just love? Science is such a pain in the ass to so many true believers. It is such a thorn in the side of so many people, they just can't stand the fact that there is something out there that is just &mdash; you can't argue against it logically, so they just have to be illogical about their response to it on every turn.<br />
<br />
P: Faith, in many cases, is illogical at its roots. That's the nature of the creature.<br />
<br />
J: It blows my mind.<br />
<br />
S: Even theologians admit that faith is fundamentally irrational. Irrational.<br />
<br />
P: Right. Correct.<br />
<br />
S: But it's a philosophical point you could debate.<br />
<br />
P: You have to be willing to accept the irrational.<br />
<br />
S: It'll be interesting to watch this unfold. This is a creationism issue again. We don't really care, officially, what faith people have. We're not anti-religious or irreligious per se. This show and our group, we're about science, scientific skepticism, but there are times when religious dogma comes right up against scientific evidence, and when that happens, of course, it is our view that religion should not dictate or make claims about the factual state of nature and the world. That's the purview of science.<br />
<br />
P: When religion crosses the line and makes testable claims ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: ... we have the right to look at it.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly. This turned out to be a testable claim, not when Joseph Smith made it, but now, whether or not the Pacific Islanders were descended from Israelites or not. Now we tested it &mdash; they're not. The only conclusion you could possibly make is that portion of the Mormon scripture is simply incorrect. Now, it's up to the Mormons. This is the real test. What do they do? How do they respond to that? Either they just ignore it; they dismiss it somehow; Yhey kind of twist it to fit what they want; or you have to take a somewhat more nuanced, contextual view of the scriptures and say "Well, they're not literal, they're metaphorical in some sections, whatever."<br />
<br />
J: What are you saying?<br />
<br />
P: Or you reinterpret. You reinterpret. What did it say, they came from Asia? Say, well, maybe they went there but they crossed here first and they came from Israel and they moved here, whatever. You reinterpret.<br />
<br />
J: You blur the lines a little.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, that's all.<br />
<br />
B: Right here, guys. It says that the church has "subtlety promoted a fresh interpretation of the Book of Mormon intended to reconcile the DNA findings with the scriptures." That just makes sense that they would try to salvage something from this, and try to &mdash; but if this is the word of God in there, and now they are trying to like you said, Steve, look at it more content contextually and not as literally, or another interpretation.<br />
<br />
S: This has happened over the last three or four hundred years. Religion has been in the slow, steady retreat from science in terms of specific claims. Three or four hundred years ago, this is the Catholic church facing Galileo, right?<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
P: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: It's the same thing. The church had their dogma. Galileo said "well just look through this telescope and you could see." "Well, we don't have to look through the telescope. We know it's true because the authority tells us what's true."<br />
<br />
J: Except now, Steve, the church can't get away with killing people and blaspheming scientists and ruining their lives and all that stuff.<br />
<br />
P: As we said, a slow steady retreat from religion is also a slow steady retreat from theocracy, except, of course, in the Muslim world.<br />
<br />
S: Right, well they're a little behind.<br />
<br />
P: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Obviously, it's religion retreating outside of the arena of science is what we advocate, and if religion want's to continue to have an active and positive role in human civilization, they need to find a way to do it without stepping on the toes of science, basically.<br />
<br />
P: Hear, hear.<br />
<br />
S: Otherwise that conflict will rage, and I believe, based upon the last several centuries of history, that science will win that fight, because science has a distinct advantage in that it has an actual relationship with reality. And over time, that &mdash; first of all, it's objective.<br />
<br />
J: Very well said.<br />
<br />
S: One person could actually objectively confirm the findings of science and debate them with somebody else, whereas faith is dogmatic. You either believe or you don't believe. There's no objectivity to it. So that gives it a power; that gives it a longevity beyond the dogma of any particular religious group. I think that this process will play itself out in the Mormons as well as we're seeing here.<br />
<br />
P: Science will win. Reality trumps superstition.<br />
<br />
S: It does. Reality in the end trumps all.<br />
<br />
P: That's all.<br />
<br />
S: There's no avoiding reality, as hard as people try. That's why this podcast is your escape to reality, right?. Reality is what it's all about.<br />
<br />
P: And on that note?<br />
<br />
S: On that note, we are out of time for the week. Guys, it was a lot of fun. Thanks for joining me.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks again, Steve.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Bob, Perry.<br />
<br />
B: Good podcast.<br />
<br />
S: Jay, Evan, wherever you are, sorry you had to leave us early.<br />
<br />
P: All right.<br />
<br />
S: But thanks for joining us. Until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro30}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_35&diff=9813SGU Episode 352015-04-04T22:35:11Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed.</p>
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|episodeDate = March 22<sup>nd</sup> 2006<br />
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<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== More on Scientology and South Park <small>(00:48)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Endangered Species <small>(8:09)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>(14:52)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Well, finally in the news this week, Noah's Ark has cropped up again. Now, of course, it doesn't take a Biblical scholar to know the story of {{w|Noah's Ark}}. This is early on in Genesis. The world was covered in a worldwide flood. God spoke to Noah; warned him of this; instructed him to build an Ark; put two of every animal on there. Actually, I think it was all of the&mdash;it was two of every predator and seven of the domesticated herbivores.<br />
<br />
B: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Hm.<br />
<br />
S: But basically, fill the Ark with animals to perpetuate their species; they survived the Flood; the Ark came to rest at the top of a mountain. You know, in modern times, Biblical scholars have interpreted that as {{w|Mount Ararat}}. Actually, I think that even goes back into Medieval times; the thinking that that was Mount Ararat. And, I remember in the 1970s, there was a movie, ''In Search of Noah's Ark'', where they&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Remember that movie?<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So there was a lot of blurry photos of outlines of alleged ships. I remember even at that time, and I was very young at the time, and I was still in my formative ages, it occurred to me that, you know, they were promoting different blurry photographs that were mutually inconsistent. You know, they were mutually exclusive. They looked like two different kinds of ships.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, do you remember the {{w|Leonard Nimoy}} show; what was that show&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: ''{{w|In Search of... (TV series)|In Search of...}}''<br />
<br />
J: Remember the cheesy program they had on that?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it was a horrible, horrible show.<br />
<br />
J: I used to buy that show hook, line and sinker when I was a kid.<br />
<br />
S: That was pure mystery mongering, that show. It's really terrible.<br />
<br />
J: I was so young and stupid, though, I just loved it. I believed every frickin' thing that happened on there.<br />
<br />
S: Well now&mdash;<br />
<br />
P: If you watch that show now, it makes you sick.<br />
<br />
S: It is; I mean, now you're like, "oh my goodness".<br />
<br />
B: Of course, Jay; it was Spock. Come on!<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, I know; hey, come on.<br />
<br />
P: It's true.<br />
<br />
S: So, they claimed there was this big ship on top of Mount Ararat, but it's in a militarily sensitive area of Turkey, so they've never let expeditions go up there. Well, these days, you don't really need to send an expedition to the top of a mountain&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Satellite.<br />
<br />
S: &mdash;you could just, you know, position a satellite over there. Exactly. Have you guys been playing with Google Earth? That is awesome.<br />
<br />
J: Love it. What a awesome application.<br />
<br />
S: You could view the entire world with a mosaic of satellite images, you know. Of course the first thing everybody does is find their own house, which is funny. It's fun to do that. But anyway, we have pretty high detailed satellite images of pretty much most of the surface of the world. So, some scientists poring over satellite images&mdash;and this has been happening for a while now; this is just the latest in this phenomenon&mdash;think they see Noah's Ark in these satellite images. The one being promoted now&mdash;we'll have it on our web site&mdash;it's... you know, it's pretty pathetic. To me, it looks like a natural wind-swept mountain edge; you know, mountain geological feature. It's only "boat-shaped" in the most generic sense, in that it's basically a very elongated kind of oval shape.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, that turned out to actually be a mobile home with a Chevy pickup parked out front.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think you may be right.<br />
<br />
E: Not surprising.<br />
<br />
S: So, again, promoters of the ''possibility'' that this could be Noah's Ark emphasize the similarities, the fact that this is sort of vaguely hull-shaped. And they are very dismissive of the apparent inconsistencies. For example, it's twice as big as the boat that is described in Genesis, and it's also the wrong shape. It's not more of a box shape that is described and that has been classically interpreted. It is more traditionally oval-shaped; pointy at the "bow and stern". But they say, "but it has the right ratio". So they're impressed by the right ratio, but they're not concerned by the fact that it's twice as big as it's supposed to be and it's the wrong shape. It also doesn't have any features that would distinguish it from a natural geological shape. And looking at it, you know, it looks like a piece of mountain. Have you guys seen this picture?<br />
<br />
B: No.<br />
<br />
S: I sent it to you.<br />
<br />
P: I saw it. I saw it on television; yes, I would agree.<br />
<br />
E: I saw it when it came out.<br />
<br />
P: It looks like nothing. It's worse than the {{w|Cydonia (region of Mars)|Face on Mars}}.<br />
<br />
E: Much worse.<br />
<br />
S: These guys say&mdash;it's the same thing as the Face on Mars or the canals on Mars or whatever.<br />
<br />
P: It's just ridiculous.<br />
<br />
S: You know, using planes for either fly-over and now, of course, satellite images to try to identify features on the ground is used commonly, but archaeologists and geologists, etc. would tell you that you always need on-the-ground confirmation. Because you just can't tell what things are from these, you know, birds-eye view sort of two-dimensional images. You just can't tell what they are. So, without on-the-ground confirmation, this is just another splotch on a satellite image.<br />
<br />
J: Of course it is. Of course.<br />
<br />
S: And it is no different than the Face on Mars or the pyramids of Mars or whatever.<br />
<br />
P: It's ridiculous.<br />
<br />
J: My question is, why even bring it up? Why make any kind of point out of it until you send somebody there? At this point, who cares that they saw something that might look like a&mdash;<br />
<br />
P: Because a lot of people put a lot of their lives in this sort of faith, Jay. It means a lot to a lot of people.<br />
<br />
S: Right. A responsible scientist would do that, Jay. Would mount the expedition; would get the higher resolution images or whatever before going public with this. Again, this is really just sensationalism.<br />
<br />
J: But Steve, is this&mdash;<br />
<br />
P: It hardly matters. It hardly matters in my opinion, too. If you send somebody up there and they don't find anything, they'll just say the Turks moved it; they're protecting it; they're Muslims; they burned it. It doesn't matter.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah. What will happen is it'll turn into like, "oh, here's another shred of proof that it exists", but no one'll ever bother to prove it or disprove it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah; it won't matter to the hard-core true believers, but to the public at large, it will marginalize it. It's like with the Face on Mars. It was the same thing. You had the sort of&mdash;<br />
<br />
P: The picture should marginalize it. Excuse me. The picture should marginalize it, so...<br />
<br />
S: You're correct.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But perhaps you may give people too much credit.<br />
<br />
P: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Bigfoot or Bison <small>(26:04)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Questions and E-mails <small>(29:58)</small>==<br />
<br />
=== Cancer Quacks <small>(30:32)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(40:09)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Artist vs. Believer <small>(44:14)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(45:47)</small>==<br />
<br />
== DNA vs. the Mormons <small>(58:23)</small>==<br />
<br />
{{Outro30}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9812Template:SGU episode list2015-04-04T22:24:40Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark 34 as done; 35 as being transcribed.</p>
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 507]], Mar 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 506]], Mar 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 505]], Mar 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 504]], Mar 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 503]], Feb 28 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 502]], Feb 21 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 501]], Feb 14 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 500]], Feb 7 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 499]], Jan 31 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 498]], Jan 24 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 497]], Jan 17 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 496]], Jan 10 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 495]], Jan 3 2015 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 494]], Dec 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 493]], Dec 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 492]], Dec 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 491]], Dec 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{i}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_34&diff=9811SGU Episode 342015-04-04T22:16:36Z<p>Jim Gibson: Complete transcription</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 34<br />
|episodeDate = March 15<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
|episodeIcon = File:PlaceholderSGU.png<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|perry = y<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast03-15-06.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, March 15, 2006. This is your host Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. With me here tonight are &mdash; we have a full boat of skeptical rogues tonight &mdash; Perry DeAngelis ...<br />
<br />
P: Hello, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... Evan Bernstein ...<br />
<br />
E: Hi, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: ... Jay Novella ...<br />
<br />
J: Well, hello, cherubs.<br />
<br />
S: ... and Bob Novella.<br />
<br />
B: Here.<br />
<br />
S: Welcome everyone.<br />
<br />
B: Hey, what's up?<br />
<br />
E: Hey, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Thanks for joining me.<br />
<br />
=== The Ides of March and Caesar's Last Breath <small>(0:48)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So today is the Ides of March, March 15th.<br />
<br />
J: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: And of course you guys all remember what happened famously on the Ides of March. This is when ...<br />
<br />
P: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: ... Caesar bit it.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, 2050 years ago.<br />
<br />
S: That's right, 2050 years, 44 BC.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
S: And interestingly, I did come across an interesting story related to that called "Caesar's Last Breath." Apparently, that has become a popular topic in chemistry classes. The question is, what happened to all of the air molecules in, just to take an example, the last breath exhaled by Caesar as he died.<br />
<br />
B: It's around.<br />
<br />
S: They're still around. That's right. So, first of all, there's quite a lot of them. The estimate is about .3 times Avogadro's number, which is 10 to the 23rd power. So ten to the 23rd power, 23 zeroes, that's a lot, that's a big number. So they actually &mdash; chemists have calculated what would happen with all those air molecules, and they actually would distribute themselves throughout the world's atmosphere in a very predictable pattern. Some of them will be taken up by plants during plant respiration, like some of the carbon dioxide molecules are being incorporated into plants. Some will dissolve in the world's waters, the world's oceans, but most of them are still floating around out there, pretty evenly distributed. The rough distribution is that if right now you take a deep breath, (breathing sounds) you will be breathing in on average one molecule that was in Caesar's last breath.<br />
<br />
P: Et tu.<br />
<br />
J: So, going with that logic, we'll be breathing in one molecule that anyone that lived ...<br />
<br />
S: Yes.<br />
<br />
J: ...a certain number of years before a certain time ever breathed in.<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: I don't buy it.<br />
<br />
S: Not only every person, but every breath of every person who's lived in the past. Again, too far in the past and the air has been recycled. Too soon, and it hasn't distributed. I don't know what those parameters are, but yeah, for hundreds or to thousands or maybe even millions of years ago.<br />
<br />
J: That is a really weird thought.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Every time you take a breath you're breathing in air that was in the lungs of every other person that's ever lived, basically.<br />
<br />
P: Making notes of this for my next Trivial Pursuit bout.<br />
<br />
J: So there's no such thing as fresh air, then.<br />
<br />
S: Depends on your definition, I guess. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but Steve, saying you're breathing in a molecule that somebody breathed is one thing, but saying you breathe the molecule that was someone's dying breath.<br />
<br />
S: But it's every breath!<br />
<br />
B: I think it's different.<br />
<br />
S: It's every breath, Bob. Every breath you've ever taken. There's a certain volume to one breath. The volume of air in that breath distributes itself in such a way that right now it's evenly distributed, so that pretty much every time you take a deep breath one of those molecules from that breath is going to be in there.<br />
<br />
P: Expand your mind, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: From his last &mdash; not everything he's ever breathed, but just that one breath.<br />
<br />
S: That one breath. One lungs full of air.<br />
<br />
P: You got that?<br />
<br />
B: I'm not buying it.<br />
<br />
S: It's because molecules are really small. Avogadro's number is huge &mdash; ten to the 23rd. You've got to wrap your mind around that.<br />
<br />
P: Bob, are you a Caesar denier?<br />
<br />
B: I can.<br />
<br />
P: You are. I believe that you are. I did know this about you.<br />
<br />
J: So Steve, the debate is that people don't believe it? What's the story here?<br />
<br />
S: There's no debate. It's just an interesting story of statistics and chemistry playing off the whole Ides of March angle.<br />
<br />
P: It's not debatable. There's a few fringe Caesar deniers, but they're way on the edge. Jay. They're way on the edge.<br />
<br />
S: There's no controversy about this. This is pretty basic textbook chemistry and physics, you know.<br />
<br />
J: It's very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: It's interesting. Think about that. It's what you get when you start dealing with such huge numbers.<br />
<br />
P: Ouch!<br />
<br />
J: But there really is something about that creeps me out.<br />
<br />
S: You think so?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, absolutely. It's creepy.<br />
<br />
P: I like it.<br />
<br />
J: I don't like being in an airplane and sharing air with those people.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Now you're saying I'm sharing air with the every ...<br />
<br />
S: With everyone who has ever lived, yeah.<br />
<br />
P: And every festering corpse. <br />
<br />
S: And every animal that's ever lived.<br />
<br />
P: There you go. <br />
<br />
S: Basically.<br />
<br />
P: Let's not talk about other things that emit from the body you might be sharing, Jay.<br />
<br />
S: That's true.<br />
<br />
J: Well, I can't help that. I have a flatulence problem. You don't have to broadcast it to the planet.<br />
<br />
P: I didn't.<br />
<br />
S: We do need to investigate the chemistry of flatulence and calculate in every breath of air that you breathe in maybe you're also breathing in the flatulence of every person that's ever lived.<br />
<br />
P: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
J: Oh, my God!<br />
<br />
B: This is a new low.<br />
<br />
P: (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
J: Ridiculous.<br />
<br />
P: You see, you can't get information like this anywhere else beside the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Only here! It's only here.<br />
<br />
B: I was going to say that, Jay, at any moment of your life there's billions of neutrinos coursing through your body, but that just pales in comparison to the flatulence (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
J: The fact that I'm breathing in every single fart that every Emperor of Italy ever farted. It blows my mind.<br />
<br />
P: It's worse. Every Emperor of France!<br />
<br />
J: You'd figure we would be able to light the entire atmosphere up with one match.<br />
<br />
P: It's worse.<br />
<br />
B: Let's segue somewhere, shall we?<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Buddha Boy <small>(6:18)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Why don't we segue to the Buddha boy. Have you guys heard the update on the Buddha boy?<br />
<br />
P: I hear he's (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
J: I hear he went out on a bender. I heard he went out drinking and whoring.<br />
<br />
S: Well, he skipped tree, as it were.<br />
<br />
P: Good, Lord!<br />
<br />
S: So to update you guys. This is the &mdash; for those audience members who may not have heard our previous discussions of this &mdash; this is a boy about 15 years old in Nepal who has been meditating under a tree, emulating Buddha. According to reports he has sat there for months without food and water, which of course is biologically impossible. And also, of course, he's not observed in the evenings. He sits behind a curtain. Now the last time we brought up an update on the Buddha boy, he was still under his tree, but witnesses said that he was starting to look a little weak and dehydrated. And I speculated that maybe with all of the attention &mdash; the guys basically surrounded by observers &mdash; with all the attention he's getting, maybe it's not so easy to sneak some food and water, and he might be feeling it. Well now he decided to leave and go somewhere else, and the people close to him say that it's because he couldn't meditate with all the people around. It was just too disturbing. But maybe he just got hungry.<br />
<br />
J: He's hanging out with Bat Boy. Ever read about Bat Boy?<br />
<br />
S: Bat boy?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, God!<br />
<br />
P: Oh, no.<br />
<br />
E: Is that the one who hangs upside down forever.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the two of them met each other at a nightclub, and now they're hanging out.<br />
<br />
P: Bat Boy never rose to the fame and prominence of Buddah Boy.<br />
<br />
S: No.<br />
<br />
P: Buddha Boy is much more, much more ...<br />
<br />
S: Buddha Boy is an A-level freak. Bat Boy is only a B-level freak.<br />
<br />
P: Right. Buddha Boy's got the tinge of religion. Bat Boy's got a comic book.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, I'm looking at his picture. He doesn't look too dehydrated or emaciated to me.<br />
<br />
P: Who knows when the picture was taken, Bob? <br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's true. That's true.<br />
<br />
S: Who know when that picture is from.<br />
<br />
P: The first five or six months of no sustenance you're fine, but you start rolling into the seventh month, eight month, you know, it starts to take a toll. <br />
<br />
S: Of food, yeah. Water, though, you're talking like a week. You can't go very long without water.<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, well no sustenance of any kind.<br />
<br />
E: According to the properties of the picture it looks like it was snapped on February 12.<br />
<br />
J: When you think about how important Buddha Boy has become, right? People really are finding some religious satisfaction out of him existing, and the fact is that Buddha Boy knows that he's full of it, because he's sneaking food and he is lying about it, and the people that surround him help him do this, and they're a bunch of liars, too. So the whole thing is based on a lie.<br />
<br />
P: It's easy to rationalize a hundred different ways.<br />
<br />
S: Pie is fraud, right?<br />
<br />
P: It's a better man. Doing good, anyway.<br />
<br />
B: It is, it's a scam.<br />
<br />
P: Of course it's a scam. To his, what, credit he has stated "I'm not Buddha." I don't want people to say (''unintelligible'') ...<br />
<br />
S: That's just the soft sell.<br />
<br />
P: I know. I know.<br />
<br />
S: That actually works to his advantage. People are more willing to believe him if he is the "reluctant God".<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, plus he's not the real Buddha Boy. I am. I can channel Buddha at any moment I want to. You guys, whenever you want to talk to him, let me know. I've got him &mdash; he's right here. (cheesy Indian accent) "Yes, my friends. Talk to me. I am here. Talk to me." <br />
<br />
P: You speak Indian?<br />
<br />
P: "Oh, I can say anything you want."<br />
<br />
S: You don't speak Indian, you just speak English with a cheesy accent. <br />
<br />
J: "No, no. I speak Indian. (gibberish)".<br />
<br />
P: I think if people saw photos of us, Jay, they would know that I'm the real Buddha.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
P: Who would be an emaciated chump.<br />
<br />
S: Jay's channelling the spirit of Buddha while Perry channels the body of Buddha.<br />
<br />
J: The physical body of Buddha.<br />
<br />
P: I'm a physical psychic. Jay is a mere mental psychic.<br />
<br />
=== El Chupacabra <small>(10:07)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Let's move onto the next news item, which is El Chupacabra.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, finally something serious.<br />
<br />
E: Si, señor.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, isn't it "La Chupacabra?"<br />
<br />
S: I've always seen &mdash; yeah, but you know what? You would think, but I've always seen "El Chupacabra."<br />
<br />
B: Well, look at that.<br />
<br />
S: I've seen "El Chupacabra." I don't know why that is.<br />
<br />
P: What is it "La?" What's "El?"<br />
<br />
E: What does he look like?<br />
<br />
B: "La" is feminine; "el" is masculine.<br />
<br />
S: It's the masculine. It ends in an "a" so you think it would be "la". Whatever. There have been a rash of chupacabra sightings in Texas. Now chupacabra is a Mexican-American, a Hispanic-American myth of the "goat sucking monster." It basically is thought to suck the blood out of goats and other livestock. It's sometimes described as a cross between a lizard and a wolf and a vampire bat or a vampire.<br />
<br />
B: Right. And that's what it means, actually: "goat sucker," doesn't it? "El Chupacabra?"<br />
<br />
S: Chupacabra means goat sucker.<br />
<br />
P: Of course it does.<br />
<br />
S: This is like Big Foot and Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster. Of course, there are sightings, which are always either fleeting or in dubious circumstances, or people of very questionable credibility, but never a piece of verifiable evidence. No biology.<br />
<br />
B: Well, I've seen pictures, Steve, and I read an article about it. Apparently some people did find this &mdash; basically, it was a wolf that had this bizarre skin condition ...<br />
<br />
S: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
B: ... that people, when they saw it, of course they had never seen anything like that, and they said "Look, we got chupacabra here", and I could see how people who aren't very savvy with canine skin conditions could misinterpret it as this myth.<br />
<br />
J: What did it look like, Bob?<br />
<br />
B: It was bizarre. It just had this weird color and missing a lot of hair and weird (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. I saw that picture too. I've seen other pictures that were clearly hoaxes, though. They were childish.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah. Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
P: If you go to elchupacabra.com, there's actually a film of him on the home page. He's just ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: ... sort of looping over and over, swimming up to the end. Very terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So either, like Bob said, some of the sightings may be based upon sightings of real carnivores. I mean, yeah, sure, there are wolves and coyotes out there, and if you have chupacabra on the brain and you see, you know, an animal that may look even vaguely like it, then you'll &mdash; especially if there's something unusual about it &mdash; you'll morph that with the legend of chupacabra. But chupacabra existed before and outside of that particular dog that you are referring to, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah. Oh yeah, I know. I know.<br />
<br />
S: This culture also has other monster legends, too. There's a demon child legend, a small imp that steals your kids in the middle of the night. And then sightings tend to come in rashes like everything else. People hear about it and they start seeing it all over the place. But chupacabra is apparently stalking Texas.<br />
<br />
=== Scientology and ''South Park'' <small>(13:20)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: I know you guys have all heard about Isaac Hayes. Isaac Hayes is a musician who has a very deep voice who does the voice of the character Chef on South Park.<br />
<br />
P: "Hello, chillun."<br />
<br />
S: "Hello, children."<br />
<br />
P: He sounds something like that.<br />
<br />
S: Now South Park, which is a wonderful cartoon, by the way.<br />
<br />
P: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: It's shtick is to be as completely irreverent as possible. The writers of South Park make ruthless fun of everything, and they have a very savvy sense of American culture and of human foibles and idiosyncrasies. They really do a great job of satirizing the stupidest things in American culture. In fact, some of the best skeptical stuff that I've seen has been on South Park.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, absolutly.<br />
<br />
S: The episode they did ...<br />
<br />
E: John Edwards.<br />
<br />
B: John Edwards.<br />
<br />
S: ... on John Edwards was in my opinion the definitive critique of him.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: It was so well done.<br />
<br />
J: Very concise.<br />
<br />
S: They get the skepticism right. I mean they get it right. Those guys, they're savvy.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah. They mention cold reading and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: They really give it to you.<br />
<br />
S: Well they did an episode this season, this last season, on Scientology, and they eviscerated Scientology, including ...<br />
<br />
J: Oh my God! Tom Cruise.<br />
<br />
P: Tom Hanks and Travolta.<br />
<br />
S: Not Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise.<br />
<br />
P: Sorry Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise.<br />
<br />
E: We know you listened, Tom, so continue to listen to our podcast.<br />
<br />
P: Travolta. And they got it all right. All they did was put their ridiculous beliefs up there. The volcano ...<br />
<br />
J: The funniest thing about that episode was the flashing sign that said they actually believe this.<br />
<br />
S: They actually believe this. This is true.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, man.<br />
<br />
S: They didn't make this up. Isaac Hayes, who was happy to remain on the show for nine seasons while the show made fun of Christians, Catholics, Jews, pretty much every other religion ...<br />
<br />
P: Mormons, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: ... Mormons and cash his checks etc., now suddenly he says that he can't stay on the show because they are insensitive to other people's religious beliefs. Of course he means his own religious beliefs.<br />
<br />
P: What a hypocritical boob.<br />
<br />
E: Totally hypocritical.<br />
<br />
P: I mean, really, that's outrageous.<br />
<br />
B: Guys, here's a quote from that article, one of the best quotes in the article. It says here "He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that's where intolerance and bigotry begin." That's from Matt Stone, one of the creators of it.<br />
<br />
P: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: That just says it all. That says it right there. It's all there.<br />
<br />
S: It's OK to be harshly critical of Catholics and Jews, but not Scientologists. He's going to quit in protest over that, because, in case it's not obvious, Isaac Hayes is a Scientologist.<br />
<br />
E: He should give back all the money he earned from that show ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: ... to make his point. That would show me something. <br />
<br />
J: I find it very surprising that this whole thing took place. You would figure somewhere in his head he would be saying to himself "I'm just going to let that one go by." But probably what happened was that the church got on him about it.<br />
<br />
P: Exactly. He was probably pressured.<br />
<br />
B: Whoa! I didn't think of that.<br />
<br />
P: I agree. He was probably pressured.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's probably right. The church of Scientology ...<br />
<br />
P: Very paranoid.<br />
<br />
S: ... is very aggressive ...<br />
<br />
P: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: ... at attacking its critics. In fact, that episode has not aired in England, and the speculation is because the libel laws are much different in England.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The level of proof is a lot lower.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So, not the writers, but I guess the ...<br />
<br />
P: The lawyers! Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ... the producers were gun-shy about airing it in England.<br />
<br />
J: Hey, Bob. Didn't he actually deny at one point that what they represented on the show was actually what Scientology's about?<br />
<br />
S: Hayes did, yeah.<br />
<br />
B: I don't know.<br />
<br />
S: He says that didn't get it right, and they should come to a couple of classes and learn what it's really about. But that's nonsense. The thing is, Hayes may not be at a high enough level to really know the inner beliefs. What was shown on South Park was what was leaked on the Internet. It was like the secret real true beliefs of Scientologists. But you don't get to actually learn that stuff until you're at the most inner circle, the highest levels.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, until you're into them for 300 grand.<br />
<br />
E: That's right, or $5 million or whatever it is.<br />
<br />
S: So Hayes &mdash; the celebrities that the Scientologists recruit, they get the kid glove treatment, they get the red carpet. They might not necessarily be privy to the real core nonsense that the Scientologists believe. The other thing is ...<br />
<br />
P: It's all nonsense. It's all ridiculous. Science fiction.<br />
<br />
S: What's interesting is it's a science fiction cult that's evolving into a religion over the course of our lifetime, basically is what we're seeing.<br />
<br />
J: It's just so ironic that of all the TV shows that exist out there that it was this TV show, the most irreverent TV show that just over and over and over again did he have a million times were he would've quit that show if he could've.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
J: The fact that &mdash; I read something along the lines of he didn't even show up to the taping of that show.<br />
<br />
S: He was out sick or something.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, sick.<br />
<br />
S: The last point I was going to make about this i that the other really irreverent show on television these days is Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" on Showtime, and Showtime has not allowed them to do a show about Scientology.<br />
<br />
P: Huh!<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: So, so far the guys at South Park are the only ones who were unafraid to take them on full-court press.<br />
<br />
E: Kudos to the ...<br />
<br />
S: In that episode, one of the characters on the show, one of the kids, was saying to the Scientologists, "Go ahead and sue me." Basically it was the writers telling the Church of Scientology "If you want to sue us, go right ahead. In your face."<br />
<br />
J: Yup.<br />
<br />
S: They were fearless, fearless in their criticism.<br />
<br />
P: Awesome.<br />
<br />
J: Well I'll tell in my opinion, if Showtime really did that, you're kidding me. It's just disgusting.<br />
<br />
P: They would just come back and tell you it's dollars and cents, Jay. That's all.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
P: How much revenue does the show bring based on how much of a threat is the lawsuit based on past success. It's all bottom line.<br />
<br />
E: You gotta give your kudos to the Comedy Channel ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: ... for allowing it to happen.<br />
<br />
P: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Good for them, whoever's in charge of that.<br />
<br />
P: Unfortunately, I'll bet you South Park brings a lot more revenue than Bullshit. They're both great shows, but I bet it does.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, definitely.<br />
<br />
E: True, true.<br />
<br />
J: South Park just got signed up for two more years.<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
P: Highly successful show.<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
=== Palm Walkers <small>(20:35)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys heard about the hand walkers?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Recently?<br />
<br />
S: This medical paper was published recently describing ...<br />
<br />
B: Yeah. We talked about it a little.<br />
<br />
S: ... a family that has ...<br />
<br />
J: India.<br />
<br />
S: ... a host of neurological deficits. Most dramatically is they walk on all fours, on feet and palms of their hands. They also have some degree of mental retardation, so they are cognitively delayed, and they speak a simple and guttural language. Now the scientist who initially presented this family to the world is claiming that they represent backward evolution. In other words, a mutation that represents the reversal of a previous mutation, and that this family has actually reverted to a more phylogenetically primitive state, essentially imitating a state earlier in our evolution.<br />
<br />
P: That's impossible!<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Is that possible?<br />
<br />
S: That's been met with a great deal of skepticism. Not the deficit that the family has, but the interpretation that this is reverse evolution. Now I think that that's speculative almost to the point of being absurd.<br />
<br />
J: Isn't it just a genetic disorder, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: It's clearly a genetic disorder.<br />
<br />
P: I think Occam's razor would have sliced that right off the top.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
P: Devolution?<br />
<br />
S: Devolution. The thing is, the evolution of bipedality was a complicated event that required many, many, many mutations &mdash; many genetic changes. It would be very unlikely for any single mutation to cause a reversal in all the things that led to bipedality. The same thing &mdash; actually, the evolution of our greatly enhanced intelligence was actually a far simpler thing to achieve genetically, but even that also involved many genes. So it's a lot simpler to hypothesize that this is just a neurological disorder that results in a gait disorder and decreased intelligence, which is just much simpler to achieve then actually reversing the course of evolution.<br />
<br />
P: It's ridiculous.<br />
<br />
S: It's actually kind of a silly suggestion.<br />
<br />
P: Of course.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, can they stand upright or can they walk?<br />
<br />
E: A couple of them can.<br />
<br />
B: Have they even tried?<br />
<br />
E: A couple of them can, according to the article, I think.<br />
<br />
S: There's what we call variable penetrance. In other words, not every family member is affected to the same degree. But, basically, they walk on all fours. I haven't read a detailed neurological exam of them. I don't know if they're totally &mdash; what would happen if they tried to walk on two legs.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, what about that African tribe? You know where I am going. The people that have like the bird feet? Their feet look like a bird's foot. There's like two main big toes and like one with a heel, so it looks like a normal foot on the bottom, but then it branches off into two big toes. You never seen those people?<br />
<br />
S: No, I haven't seen that.<br />
<br />
P: Neither have I.<br />
<br />
J: I can send you a link to a video clip of them, but basically it reminds me very much of this story that were talking about.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: These people have a genetic disorder, and every single person in the family has this to a varying degree, and they said it was from inbreeding.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: But, Jay, are you saying that we evolved from birds?<br />
<br />
S: That would be the equivalent of saying that that mutation, ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... which leads to basically having two big, fused toes in the front of the foot, which is a morphological abnormality, basically a failure of the toes to divide in development. The digits partly formed by the cells between them dying off, and then basically you would have skin between every finger, except those in development, those cells die off. And if that fails to occur, then you end up with fused digits. That's a very common, actually, kind of developmental problem.<br />
<br />
B: I knew somebody that had that.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But to suggest that that somehow would represent an earlier evolutionary stage we had two toes is silly. Nw there are examples in the animal kingdom of genuine reverse evolution. That concept is not new. For example, occasionally a horse is born that has more than one toe. The hoof of a horse is basically one big and large toe, and the other four toes, because the animals that horses evolved from had five toes, the other four basically became smaller throughout the course of evolution and don't develop. But the genes for them are still there, and there, it just takes one mutation for a horse to be born with three toes. Two of the smaller toes would develop. So when you have a single mutation that made a specific change, especially if it's a regulatory gene, a gene that basically turns on the development of an entire ...<br />
<br />
B: Suite of things.<br />
<br />
S: ... suite of things, like an entire limb, for example, that would control the number of toes. That one reverse mutation could then revert back to an earlier stage in evolution. That does happen quite frequently.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, I can also imagine another way that it would happen, not necessarily requiring a mutation. But if your environment changes back in a way so that it duplicates the environment as it was a long time ago, or say you migrate somewhere, and you encroach an environment where the environment is very similar to what it was as you were evolving, then the selective pressure could push you back to adapt to that environment again.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: That would be another type of backward evolution in a sense.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's true. And the difference from what you're talking about is that there may be populations of animals where the vast majority of them have one allele, one type of gene that expresses a certain characteristic, what we call a phenotype, and that represents the average member of that species, because it's adapted to their current environment. If they change their environment or the environment changes, that the small minority of the population that has another allele with a different characteristic that's better adapted to the new environment, they may become the dominant allele in the species. And that's just population genetics, which is a lot of what occurs in evolution. In fact, Stephen J. Gould wrote an excellent essay about that. Gould's specialty was snails. That's what he was a specialist outside of his popularizing of science and evolution. His technical specialty was in snails, and he identified species of snails where that happened all the time. Where basically the different coilings of their shells &mdash; one was better adapted to some kind of environment. I think it had to do with how windy the environment was. Another type of shell was adapted to a different kind of environment, and as they migrate from island to island or whatever from area to area, whatever form of the shell was better adapted would be the one that became dominant there. And also the same kind of thing you could see over evolutionary time at the same changes in morphology would occur and reocurr and reoccur and reoccur over evolutionary time. And then reverse themselves again as, again, the local environment changed. <br />
<br />
B: That must have taken quite some time for a snail to migrate to another island.<br />
<br />
S: Maybe they just drift on wood or something. There's some quicker ways.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: The bottom line of all this is that this is a legitimate concept, but it usually only applies to much simpler genetic systems, not to something as complicated as bipedal gait. So I don't think that that ...<br />
<br />
B: Right<br />
<br />
S: ... theory is going to pan out with this family.<br />
<br />
=== What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole <small>(29:32)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: Let's move onto another item that caught my attention this week. Do you guys remember the movie that was put out a few years ago called "What the Bleep Do We Know?"<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Now this was produced by the Cult, actually. This is the cult of Ramtha. Now Ramtha is J. Z. Knight, who is a woman who lives in California, who claims to channel the spirit of a 35,000-year-old Neanderthal called Ramtha. She's a total scam artist. Channeling is an old scam. This is basically the spiritualism, the mediumship of a hundred to two hundred years ago, except modern channelers figured out that if they just leave out the physical manifestations like the floating trumpets and the rapping noises &mdash; if they just leave that out then there's no way they can get caught. Right? There's nothing to catch. All they do is say "Yes, I'm channeling the spirit of this person.," and then that's it. The truth or the hoax of it lies only in their mind. There's no physical manifestations to test.<br />
<br />
P: Well, you usually have to have a another good voice. (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
E: Yes, not a cheesy stereotypical accent.<br />
<br />
S: Right. And in fact I don't know if it's a coincidence or if you guys were thinking of this, but Evan and I investigated a local channeler, very much in the tradition of J. Z. Knight and Ramtha. Again, it's amazing how spirits were channeling one way 100 years ago, and now they're all channeling a different way in this generation. So either it's culture, or the spirits have all decided to start spontaneously changing what they do. But anyways, this woman was channeling a Nepalese spirit, only about 750 years old called Dehartma.<br />
<br />
E: Dehartma.<br />
<br />
S: The funny thing about this &mdash; this was so pathetic &mdash; is that she goes into a little pretend trance, and then she speaks. She spoke in an absolutely cheesy Indian &mdash; I guess it's also Nepalese &mdash; accent.<br />
<br />
J: Worse than mine, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Worse than yours, Jay. She wasn't even that good an actress. Evan and I were interviewing her while she was channeling, and we asked Dehartma if she could speak Nepalese, and she can't! And I was fully expecting her to actually speak the local tongue. I don't know if you call it Nepalese or not, but whatever you call it, to speak the local dialect, and she doesn't even speak it! Then how come you know how to speak English? That language she got from the person who is channeling her. It's like "Oh, then why are you speaking in a cheesy accent." Why would the accent carryover but not the language.<br />
<br />
J: (cheesy Indian accent) "Shut up! Do not ask stupid questions!"<br />
<br />
P: (cheesy Indian accent) "You should not be confusing me with reason and logic."<br />
<br />
E: Only those of the seventh circle of some nonsense can understand.<br />
<br />
S: Seventh dimension of love.<br />
<br />
J: (cheesy Indian accent) "You do not talk when I talk. Only I talk when I talk."<br />
<br />
E: That's what it was like, only worse. Only worse.<br />
<br />
B: Shouldn't, when you go to scam school, shouldn't they teach you how to do a good accent? (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
S: Bob, you don't have to. You don't have to.<br />
<br />
J: People buy it. People buy it.<br />
<br />
S: The people around her totally bought it.<br />
<br />
E: Oh didn't they, though? There were four other people there, her little posse, her flock, her rogues, as it were.<br />
<br />
P: They really believed her?<br />
<br />
E: And they, they totally, absolutely did.<br />
<br />
S: She did speak one word. She did say "Namaste". The joke was that's like saying I'm channeling the spirit of King Kamehameha, but all I know how to do a say is 'aloha' and speak in a cheesy Hawaiian accent.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: That was the equivalent "Aloha! I'm King Kamehameha."<br />
<br />
E: Can you speak anything else of your native tongue?<br />
<br />
S: No!<br />
<br />
J: Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Oh my goodness!<br />
<br />
J: Are you sure you're channeling King Kamehameha or Don Ho?<br />
<br />
P: Ridiculous.<br />
<br />
S: It is. So anyway, J. Z. Knight, who's made millions of dollars with this (''unintelligible'').<br />
<br />
J: Yo! I'm down with J. Z. <br />
<br />
E: Not that one.<br />
<br />
S: Not that one.<br />
<br />
J: Sorry.<br />
<br />
S: Her people produced an actual, a pretty slick movie a few years ago called "What the Bleep Do We Know?", which basically is a compelete bastardization of quantum mechanics and using a very fuzzy understanding of quantum theory and quantum physics to try to argue that we make our own realities, and there is no reality, and it's all a product of consciousness, all the feel-good, new agey spirit crap, right?<br />
<br />
B: I hate that.<br />
<br />
S: But wildly successful within those circles.<br />
<br />
J: Of course.<br />
<br />
S: Especially on the West Coast, where these kinds of sensibilities ...<br />
<br />
B: If could make my own reality, it would be very different.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
J: I sure as Hell wouldn't be wasting my time here with you idiots.<br />
<br />
S: That's because you don't believe. You're locked into this reality ...<br />
<br />
B: Ha.<br />
<br />
S: ... because you don't accept the truth, and you haven't given millions of dollars to J. Z. Knight.<br />
<br />
B: Has anyone read &mdash; this is kind of related, Steve. Has anyone read "Vannie Fucci Is Alive And Well And Living In Hell"?<br />
<br />
P: No.<br />
<br />
E: I did not.<br />
<br />
B: It's a great, great short story about this guy that appears on a religious talkshow. He just shows up out of nowhere. Nobody knows where he came from, and it turns out his name is Vannie Fucci, and he's been living in hell for 800 years, and he basically just goes to town on these religious hypocrites. It's funny, they threw in a little quantum mechanics in the story, and I loved it. They said that in 1981, Elaine Ospic did a quantum mechanics experiment with a photon of light showing how the photons are entangled and stuff. He claimed that it showed that the mind creates reality, which is kind of exactly what this kind of stuff is talking about. It said that the modern concept of hell was created by Dante Alighieri in his comedy, and because so many people believed it, it actually did become real. His whole schtick was that the more people believe in it, the more real it becomes.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: If all of society believes it, then it's real, and that's why Hell as he described it in his book existed. I recommend that short story to anybody.<br />
<br />
S: It good fiction, but of course the history of science completely disproves such notions.<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely, absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: Science has been a process of discovering that what everyone believes is not true. If what everyone believed made it so, then there would be an ether and the world would look like whatever Medieval people thought it was supposed to look like.<br />
<br />
B: Right, right, and quantum mechanics is such a great target becasue it's so counterintuitive and so unlike other sciences, that it's just easy for people to latch onto and say "See, science supports this crazy idea."<br />
<br />
S: But for the record, the core misunderstanding in "What The Bleep Do We Know?" and the quantum quackery that we encounter is that the consciousness does not make reality. The idea that the quantum level matter exists as a probability wave and that when "observe" it that it collapses and has to choose one form, and that therefore the observer is making it happen.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: But that's really by a misconception.<br />
<br />
B: That was an initial interpretation that pretty much nobody really believes anymore. Now there are other ways ...<br />
<br />
S: No, no, it is not the act of observing. It's the fact that when you observe you're doing something to it.<br />
<br />
B: Right. It's the interaction with the environment. "Decoherence" it's called.<br />
<br />
S: And in fact, one physicist trying to counter this said that the quantum probability waveform is so fragile that even the slightest interaction with its environment will force it to collapse and choose one state.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: So it's just that it's extremely &mdash; you can't observe it. There's nothing you can do it to observe it that won't force it to collapse, because it's so fragile. And, of course, it's that fragility which completely counteracts or contradicts all of the quantum quackery out there. Basically, we don't live in a quantum world. We live in a physical, mechanistic world.<br />
<br />
E: A knowable world.<br />
<br />
S: It's only at this very fragile level of particles, subatomic particles that are not interacting with anything where this quantum fuzziness occurs, not in the macroscopic world that we occupy or inhabit. I bring this up because they're coming out with a sequel "What The Bleep: Down The Rabbit Hole," which is just more quantum quackery from J. Z. Knight and her loony followers.<br />
<br />
J: J. Z.!<br />
<br />
P: Does she not have enough millions? What's the problem?<br />
<br />
E: She must be running out or something.<br />
<br />
P: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't think I can bring myself to watch that.<br />
<br />
J: Guys, when you find something that works, you know. Of course she's doing it again.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, it's no surprise. That's for sure.<br />
<br />
== Your E-mails ==<br />
<br />
=== Water on Enceladus <small>(39:10)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: We had one email this week.<br />
<br />
E: Only one?<br />
<br />
S: Only one. We get between one and three or so a week. By the way ...<br />
<br />
E: Email us. We want to hear your feedback, good and bad, so make sure <br />
<br />
S: We want to hear your voice. No one yet has sent us a voice. We will play you on our podcast.<br />
<br />
E: Include your cheesy Nepalese accent, if you want. We'd really like to hear it.<br />
<br />
J: Don't hesitate to send your nude pictures to Jay. I'll examine them and pick the ones that will go up in the website.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, I got a few emails as well. We'll go over them for next week's podcast.<br />
<br />
S: Bob, your holding out on me. Your not sending me (''unintelligible'')<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, all right.<br />
<br />
S: Apparently we are getting more emails than I'm aware of that Bob is holding out.<br />
<br />
P: What?<br />
<br />
S: In any case, just for disclosure, now all the emails that I've seen I've read on the show so far, so I'm not handpicking these, and I've actually been a little surprised that every email so far that I received is been very, very positive. No critical emails, which is different than when we publish articles on our website, I usually get about 80% critical. The podcast so far has been a hundred percent positive, so I guess non-skeptics are not bothering to download and listen to our podcasts, which is just fine. But still waiting to hear &mdash; so if anyone out there is not a skeptic and you want to criticize anything that we have to say, let us have it. We want to hear from you, too.<br />
<br />
E: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: Be happy to discuss your thoughts. We will read your emails on our podcast. But this is another positive one. This comes from Julio Mendez from Miramar, Florida. Julio writes "I just wanted to say thanks for providing a unique and insightful show that strengthens my beliefs and disbeliefs about a universe, not to mention my skeptical toolkit." He goes on to say that he is 25 years old and works as an IT administrator for an engineering firm. And then he says some more stuff and goes onto to ask the question "What do you guys think about the latest discovery of the Saturnian moon Enceladus? They now have significant evidence of towering geysers of water shooting out water vapor and ice 265 miles out into space. That's pretty crazy. Could this be the door leading to the holy grail of science? Where there is water, shouldn't there be life that requires it? Your thoughts? Thanks again, Julio Mendez." Well ...<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Julio. Thank you, Julio.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, we talked a little about it.<br />
<br />
S: We did talk about this a little bit the last week. In fact, Rebecca, who was on our show last week brought it up. What he says is true. I did look at the astronomy sites and the NASA sites to get some update, and they definitely confirm that these are water molecules that are shooting out from the south pole of Enceladus. And here's the new bit that I picked up from &mdash; I think it was just published yesterday or today &mdash; that they now have confirmed that the material from these geysers are actually what produces the E-ring around Saturn, which was ...<br />
<br />
B: Ohhhhh.<br />
<br />
S: ... Saturn's biggest ring. The rings of Saturn are actually many, many identifiable rings, and the ring that has been designated as the E-ring, which is one of the bigger ones, I think it's the biggest one, is actually continuously being replenished by material from Enceladus that's shooting out.<br />
<br />
E: Remarkable.<br />
<br />
B: I'd think it would be the F-ring, but okay, I'll go with that.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, do we know why it's shooting the water out like that?<br />
<br />
S: It just because it's being heated from inside, probably because of tidal forces, and then that heated water gets under pressure and then shoots out like a geyser.<br />
<br />
P: I'm not much of an astronomer, but I though everything was frozen out that far.<br />
<br />
S: Well, once it goes out it freezes, so you have these little crystals of ice floating around in the ring.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: The other thing that happens is that once it shoots up, it rains snow down onto Enceladus, and Enceladus is completely covered with snow and is very, very white for that very reason.<br />
<br />
P: Hm.<br />
<br />
B: How big is that moon?<br />
<br />
S: It's small, actually. It's kind of small.<br />
<br />
B: You'd think it would go into orbit or beyond the orbit of the moon. If it's a tiny moon and it's squirting out 265 miles, you'd think it would reach orbital velocity, but I don't know how big the moon really is.<br />
<br />
S: But it's getting caught in the orbit of Saturn.<br />
<br />
B: Right, and it's raining back down on the moon.<br />
<br />
S: Well, some of it is coming back down on the moon.<br />
<br />
E: Some of it.<br />
<br />
B: Right, okay, that's makes more sense.<br />
<br />
S: The outer fringe that are not going as far, but the main spray &mdash; you can imagine a spray ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... which is not all a discrete stream. It's getting probably different velocities in different parts of it, and the slower ones rain down, and the faster ones do escape and then become the ring of Saturn. Jay, you were saying?<br />
<br />
J: Steve, Julio asked at the end of his email, he said where there is water shouldn't there be life that requires it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
J: What do you think about that?<br />
<br />
B: He's got it backwards. He's got it a little backwards. Life as we know it, I think, probably requires water, but not the other way around.<br />
<br />
S: Where there's life, there's water. I guess what he is saying is that there's at least the possibility of life if there's water.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, absolutely! Absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: It makes Encelaldus a much higher priority place for us to investigate, although my thinking is if the water is constantly shooting out in a geyser, would that make it difficult for life to get a foothold, or are there reservoirs of water underneath the surface of Enceladus that are relatively stable over millions of years. They're not at risk for shooting out into space. I guess there must be because there's still water under there, so there's got to be a pretty big reservoir.<br />
<br />
B: Right. I can't wait till we get to one of those moons and see if there is any &mdash; some sort of bacterial life.<br />
<br />
S: Europa. I think Europa is still the best chance.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: There are oceans of water under Europa.<br />
<br />
B: That's going to be tough, though. They're talking how many miles of ice would we have to bore through. It's doable.<br />
<br />
S: It's worth it.<br />
<br />
B: Oh, absolutely. I agree.<br />
<br />
S: Imagine the boon to science if we found life on another planet.<br />
<br />
B: Oh my God!<br />
<br />
J: We should hit it with a nuke. Crack it open, right?<br />
<br />
S: And destroy whatever's down there.<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding, of course.<br />
<br />
S: I know. I know.<br />
<br />
B: Imagine if the DNA was just like ours.<br />
<br />
S: Just that question alone: "Does it have DNA?"<br />
<br />
E: Right. Right.<br />
<br />
S: And what would be the similarities and differences.<br />
<br />
J: E.T. had DNA.<br />
<br />
S: He did.<br />
<br />
P: How do you know that, Jay?<br />
<br />
S: From the movie "E.T.".<br />
<br />
P: Yeah, how do you know he had DNA?<br />
<br />
J: The guy came running in "He has DNA!". <br />
<br />
P: Oh, oh. Okay.<br />
<br />
S: They said that in the movie.<br />
<br />
P: I forgot.<br />
<br />
B: What if it had like a triple helix instead of a double helix?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, instead of a double helix.<br />
<br />
J: Imagine what kind of kung-fu it could do, then.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(45:44)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: Well, guys, let's move onto Science or Fiction.<br />
<br />
(cheers)<br />
<br />
(intro)<br />
<br />
S: Each week, I come up with three news items or facts, two genuine one fictitious, and I challenge my skeptical rogues to tell me which one is the fake. The theme for this week, kind of playing off the Enceladus email, is astronomy. So I have three recent astronomical discoveries, and you guys have to tell me which one is fake. Ready?<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
E: Ready. Ready.<br />
<br />
S: Again, no comments until I name all three of them.<br />
<br />
P: Unless your name's Evan.<br />
<br />
E: Rats.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: Item number one: astronomers have discovered a nebula near the Milky Way center in the shape of an elongated double helix. In effect, looks like a little long string of DNA. Number two: recent studies of distant galaxies has revealed that young galaxies have far less dark matter. In other words, the ratio of dark matter to stars is much smaller than in galaxies today. Astronomically, that means galaxies that are closer to us, because as you look far away you're looking back in time, right? This suggests that dark matter is increasing, and if you extrapolate this out, dark matter will eventually take over the universe.<br />
<br />
B: Wait! Oh, I got a question on that.<br />
<br />
E: No comments. No comments.<br />
<br />
S: We'll get to you. Item number three: astronomers have developed a technique allowing them to view the far side of the sun. Okay, so number one is: we discovered a nebula near the center of our galaxy shaped in an elongated double helix; number two: studies have shown that dark matter is increasing in the universe and will eventually take over the universe; and item number three: that astronomers have developed a technique allowing them to view the far side of the sun. Jay, why don't we start with you?<br />
<br />
J: I definitely think it's number three. I've heard of number one, the double helix. I think I remember reading about that, so I'm just going to say that exists. Number two: number two kind of makes sense to me, but number three makes absolutely no sense at all to me. I can't imagine how they could view the side of the sun that isn't facing us.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, the argument from personal incredulity. Good.<br />
<br />
P: Excellent.<br />
<br />
S: Perry.<br />
<br />
E: I love that one.<br />
<br />
J: It's not like I'm saying I'm right. These are guesses, of course.<br />
<br />
B: Steve, not a bad reason for a game like this.<br />
<br />
J: I remember Bob telling me ...<br />
<br />
P: Okay, I'll go next.<br />
<br />
J: Wait! One more thing I want to say. I remember Bob telling me ...<br />
<br />
P: Oh, God!<br />
<br />
J: ... it takes 1 million years for the light ...<br />
<br />
P: Somebody stop him.<br />
<br />
J: ... to actually leave the sun once it's generated.<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Right, Bob?<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
J: Interesting fact.<br />
<br />
S: From the core?<br />
<br />
J: Move on.<br />
<br />
B: It is. It's bouncing around a long time before actually exits.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
J: I pick number three.<br />
<br />
B: Unless it's neutrinos.<br />
<br />
S: Number three: we can't see the far side of the sun. Perry?<br />
<br />
P: (clears throat) Is it my turn?<br />
<br />
S: It's your turn.<br />
<br />
P: All right. The first one sounds perfectly reasonable.<br />
<br />
S: Of course it does.<br />
<br />
P: The third one sounds odd. To believe the second one, however, would throw me into a downward spiral of hopelessness.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
P: I probably couldn't withdraw myself out ...<br />
<br />
J: Because you're such a cheery guy to begin with, right?<br />
<br />
P: That one simply has to be &mdash; the second one has to be fake.<br />
<br />
S: So the argument from final consequences.<br />
<br />
P: Absolutely.<br />
<br />
S: All right. Evan.<br />
<br />
J: Love it!<br />
<br />
E: I'll do the argument from authority.<br />
<br />
S: Okay.<br />
<br />
E: Being a novice astronomer myself, I can conclude that I'll agree with Perry. I'll think that number two is the false one, simply because I know so little about dark matter ...<br />
<br />
S: Okay. The argument from ignorance.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, okay, argument from ignorance.<br />
<br />
P: You wanted authority, you ended up with ignorance.<br />
<br />
E: Really! I don't have a clue at all about number two, and whereas the other two.<br />
<br />
S: I'll give you a bit of background. We know by observing galaxies that there has got to be a lot more matter in them than we can see. There's a lot more stuff producing gravity ...<br />
<br />
E: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... than what's generating light that we can see.<br />
<br />
B: Otherwise, the orbital speed of the stars that are in orbit around the center, would fly apart, because ...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: ... they're just going too fast to be held.<br />
<br />
S: They should be moving slower, or they would be flying away from the center of the galaxy. So there's more gravity holding them in place than what we can see. That's been called dark matter, and, in fact ...<br />
<br />
P: Why is dark matter more plausible than invisible alien civilizations?<br />
<br />
S: It's just a hypothesis.<br />
<br />
P: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: You can hypothesize your invisible aliens civilizations, too.<br />
<br />
J: It's the psychic bigfoot.<br />
<br />
P: Okay. All right.<br />
<br />
S: In fact, most of the universe &mdash; actually the most common thing in the universe is dark energy ...<br />
<br />
B: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ... which I won't get into right now. But dark matter does vastly outnumber what we can see. Most of the universe is invisible to us. What we can see is only like &mdash; what is it Bob? &mdash; ten percent of what's actually out there?<br />
<br />
B: I think it's even less than that.<br />
<br />
S: Less than ten percent?.<br />
<br />
B: Similar. Little less than ten, I think.<br />
<br />
P: Dark matter is not to be confused with black holes?<br />
<br />
E: I was going to ask if dark matter was influenced by black holes.<br />
<br />
B: No, because black holes, even though they are by definition invisible, they're detectable, but dark matter so far is not. We don't know what it is. We can't detect it yet. We're not sure what it is.<br />
<br />
E: Very good. I'll stop.<br />
<br />
P: I mean, seriously to me. To my mind &mdash; excuse me, Evan &mdash; to my mind it sounds like the old theory of the ether.<br />
<br />
S: Well, it's different.<br />
<br />
B: No.<br />
<br />
S: Because we know something is out there. We just don't know what it is.<br />
<br />
B: Something's there. Something's there. There's an effect, and we're just trying to figure out what the cause is.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, could you consider dark chocolate dark matter?<br />
<br />
S: Can you see it?<br />
<br />
J: No, but I can eat it.<br />
<br />
E: If I close my eyes I can't see it.<br />
<br />
B: Guys, I subscribe to Douglas Adams' interpretation of dark matter: it's all the packing material in the boxes of scientific instruments that astronomers used to find out about dark matter.<br />
<br />
P: It's entirely possible.<br />
<br />
S: It turned out it was only packing material.<br />
<br />
E: Well, I mean, this just reinforces my decision that B is, of course, incorrect. It must be.<br />
<br />
S: Okay. So you don't think dark matters is taking over the universe.<br />
<br />
E: That's correct. Not by a long shot. How about that? I'll go out on a limb.<br />
<br />
P: The argument from authoritative ignorance.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: Bob? Let me hear it.<br />
<br />
B: Okay. The double helix nebula sounds totally plausible, and for that reason alone might be a good reason to pick, but I'm not going to pick that one.<br />
<br />
S: It's a bit too plausible.<br />
<br />
B: Right. The far side of the sun. At first I was thinking: how the hell you're going to do that, but I can imagine that somehow you could somehow peer through &mdash; what is it, the photosphere of the sun? Look at the sun edge on and go through the upper atmosphere, and you could maybe go through the sun and see what's going on the other side. Maybe you could see what kind of sunspot activity's going on or something. It seems feasible that you could actually see through the Sun and image the other side. Now, Steve, your description of number two didn't make much sense to me.<br />
<br />
S: Bob. The galaxies are farther away, therefore they're back in time.<br />
<br />
B: I understand that. I actually understand that.<br />
<br />
S: Therefore, they're younger, right? &mdash; young galaxies.<br />
<br />
B: We could be looking at a galaxy as it was 10 billion years ago.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: But at that time, it could've been a young galaxy.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: The equivalent in age to a galaxy that's only a million light years away, so age &mdash; I don't see how age is that important of a factor, because age isn't necessarily negated by distance. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I'm saying?<br />
<br />
S: But in general, as you go back in time, galaxies get younger. It was six billion years ago. If you look at six billion years ago, galaxies at that time had much less dark matter than say our galaxy does now, suggesting that dark matter has been increasing over the last six billion years.<br />
<br />
J: So you've got to pick one, Bob.<br />
<br />
B: I know.<br />
<br />
J: There's people in Florida that are waiting for the answer, right now.<br />
<br />
B: Okay. I'll go with two. That just doesn't sound right to me &mdash; the dark matter.<br />
<br />
J: So I standalone!<br />
<br />
S: Jay stands alone. We've got three picks for dark matter taking over the universe. Jay doesn't think we can see the far side of the sun, and everyone liked the double helix thing.<br />
<br />
E: I like that. It has to do with life. It's very positive, very optimistic.<br />
<br />
S: Let's start with the double helix nebula. That is, in fact, true. That is science.<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: You guys all got that one right. The nebula &mdash; this was just published in the March 16th issue of Nature &mdash; the observation of the nebula. The hypothesis is that &mdash; the center of our galaxy there's a huge black hole.<br />
<br />
E: As is the center of every galaxy.<br />
<br />
B: Well, a lot of them. A lot of them.<br />
<br />
S: That's probably true, many of them. The center of our galaxy also has an enormous magnetic field.<br />
<br />
E: Huge.<br />
<br />
S: Basically, what they think is happening is that the nebula is kind of like tethered to the magnetic field, and as it rotates around the center of the galaxy ...<br />
<br />
B: Aaaahhhh.<br />
<br />
S: ... it twists it up like ...<br />
<br />
B: Cool!<br />
<br />
S: ... when you wind up a rubber band it takes on a double helix structure.<br />
<br />
E: Hm, hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's what they think is happening with that.<br />
<br />
B: Cool.<br />
<br />
S: Now, Jay, you don't think that we can see on the far side of the sun, but the other three of you do, so do any of the other three of you have any idea how we might be able to see on the far side of the sun?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, we use the reflective surfaces off other planets and other objects to see what's going on.<br />
<br />
S: Incorrect.<br />
<br />
B: No, somehow we're imaging through the sun and seeing the other side.<br />
<br />
S: Kind of. We are using a technique called acoustic helioseismology.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes!<br />
<br />
E: I knew that.<br />
<br />
S: Bob, you actually recognize that term?<br />
<br />
B: Yes! Sound! Yes!<br />
<br />
S: That's right.<br />
<br />
B: The sun is ringing like a bell, and they determine that through this acoustic helioseismology.<br />
<br />
J: I hate you, Bob! I hate you!. Suck!<br />
<br />
S: What they're actually doing &mdash; that's correct &mdash; but there are also bubbles of solar gas, and these bubbles percolate to the surface of the sun, and they actually make noise when they do that. You can use the noise that's basically spreading throughout the sun, and you can use that just like a physician uses a Doppler to image a fetus in the womb, right? You can use the ...<br />
<br />
E: Noise in space?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah. Well, through the very thin matter. Space is not a perfect vacuum, remember.<br />
<br />
B: Well, there's also the solar wind that I'm sure is being affected.<br />
<br />
S: Right. Right. Most of the matter in our solar system is basically solar wind in the space. So in any case you can use the sound produced by the sun's farts, basically. It's the bubbles of gas percolating to the surface like a Doppler scan, and they figured out how to use that to not only image deep within the sun but to image all the way to the other side. Now the purpose of that is to see sunspots on the other side so that we can predict when they're going to rotate to the near side of the sun and disrupt communications or whatever &mdash; produce solar weather. So this is a way of predicting solar weather, because we actually see it coming around. Now the sun takes about 27 days to rotate around, so basically we can see 13 days into the future. Now, so number three is also science. Number two is fiction.<br />
<br />
P: Yay.<br />
<br />
S: You guys are correct. I basically took a genuine report and then just changed what was actually found.<br />
<br />
E: Of coures.<br />
<br />
S: Recent investigations have in fact shown they when we examine young galaxies, galaxies in the past, specifically 6 billion years ago, they have the exact same ratio of dark matter that we do today. So this ratio of dark matter is actually stable over very long periods of time, and that this is very informative, apparently, to cosmologists about the relationship between matter and dark matter. And that, in fact, they must be interacting with each other a lot more than was previously supposed.<br />
<br />
B: Why?<br />
<br />
S: Because the stable ratio suggests that there's an interaction between the two.<br />
<br />
B: Huh! I don't follow that, but okay.<br />
<br />
S: I don't understand exactly how you come to that conclusion, but that's what the investigator said.<br />
<br />
B: Maybe they're both stable but don't interact much. I don't know. Okay.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, so how long has truth or fiction been rigged?<br />
<br />
B: Science or fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Science or fiction? What do you think, I emailed Bob the answers before?<br />
<br />
B: I'd do better if that were the case. <br />
<br />
J: I have one more question for you before you close out the show. When you're arguing with your wife, do you, while she's coming up with her arguments, do you say quietly to yourself "logical fallacy number three, logical fallacy number seven"?<br />
<br />
S: Jay, I'm saying that to myself all the time when I'm talking with everybody.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, God!<br />
<br />
P: Oh gosh! Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.<br />
<br />
B: Great! I mean it's ... And on that note ...<br />
<br />
S: Understanding how the mind misfires is very instructive. It's very helpful to purge your own thinking of logical fallacies. Once you are familiar with the logical fallacies, you realize that people make them all the time. <br />
<br />
E: Yes, they do.<br />
<br />
S: But I have at least a modicum of social skills, so I am not constantly pointing it out to people. Now you guys, you guys will get it full force.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I don't have to pretend to have any social skills with you guys.<br />
<br />
P: Hm, hm, hm, hm.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, you do a great job, Steve.<br />
<br />
P: Clearly.<br />
<br />
E: I wanted to say one &mdash; can I make a personal note.<br />
<br />
S: Of course.<br />
<br />
E: I thought I would throw this out there.<br />
<br />
S: I'm sorry, we're out of time!<br />
<br />
E: We're talking about astronomy. We're talking about other things. I just received in the mail the other day the seven disc DVD version of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos".<br />
<br />
S: Excellent. I've been tivo'ing it off of public television.<br />
<br />
E: (''unintelligible'') in 1980. I've only ever seen bits and pieces of that show. I now have the luxury of being able to sit down and watch it from beginning to end. So over the course of the next weeks as I learn some tidbits, I might choose to share them here on the show with you all and ...<br />
<br />
S: Excellent.<br />
<br />
E: ... maybe get you all interested and hopefully you'll all be able to go out and take a look at "Cosmos" again. <br />
<br />
J: Maybe a little example of Evan next week: "You know, gentlemen, I find it very interesting when we consider light solarizing itself off of the other side of the sun."<br />
<br />
S: I've actually watched every episode of "Cosmos" at least five or six times. It's an excellent, excellent &mdash; a landmark series. The thing I like about "Cosmos," it really took a new format. Prior to that, and even since then, many science documentaries still do this. There's basically a disembodied voice narrating in the background, and then they cut to different talking head scientists saying almost random bits of information. And then some producer or editor strings it all together. The thing that was really different about "Cosmos" is that it was written. It was a story, and Sagan was a consistent narrator and host, and he really walked you through from beginning to end in a very prescribed way. So it had a much better storytelling, consistent, thorough feel to it than any other science documentary, really, that I've seen. It still stands out as just a tremendous, tremendous work.<br />
<br />
E: I can't wait to lose myself in it, and, again, I'll be looking to share some facts with you all in the weeks to come.<br />
<br />
S: It would be nice to have an updated version of "Cosmos".<br />
<br />
E: Here, I'll channel in Carl Sagan.<br />
<br />
P: That's what I was going to say.<br />
<br />
S: That's all we have to do, channel Carl Sagan.<br />
<br />
E: "Billions and billions" of podcasts ago.<br />
<br />
S: He never said that, by the way.<br />
<br />
P: He never said that. That's right.<br />
<br />
E: I know! Of course. Yes, yes.<br />
<br />
(''laughter'')<br />
<br />
S: He never said "billions and billions." My wet dream, by the way, is to do a Cosmoesque Series, all about skepticism, scientific skepticism. That would be awesome.<br />
<br />
E: It would be the magnum opus of skepticism ...<br />
<br />
P: Skeptos. We could do it.<br />
<br />
E: ... that would endure generations and generations.<br />
<br />
P: I will start writing it.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Yeah, let's do it. Let's write it.<br />
<br />
E: Actually, we're kind of doing it now with these podcasts, in a way.<br />
<br />
S: We don't have anything else to do, right?<br />
<br />
P: No. This is the ground work.<br />
<br />
S: Okay, gentleman, thanks again. We are now out of time.<br />
<br />
E: Rats.<br />
<br />
S: Thank you, again, for joining me tonight, guys.<br />
<br />
E: Well, thanks for having us.<br />
<br />
P: Thank you! It was good being here. It was really good.<br />
<br />
S: Evan, Bob, Perry, Jay, skeptical rogues.<br />
<br />
P: Very special.<br />
<br />
S: It was a good episode.<br />
<br />
P: It was.<br />
<br />
E: Good night, my friends.<br />
<br />
S: Until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro30}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
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{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibsonhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_34&diff=9810SGU Episode 342015-04-01T16:16:51Z<p>Jim Gibson: Mark as being transcribed</p>
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|episodeDate = March 15<sup>th</sup> 2006<br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
<br />
=== Buddha Boy <small>(6:18)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== El Chupacabra <small>(10:07)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Scientology and ''South Park'' <small>(13:20)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== Palm Walkers <small>(20:35)</small>===<br />
<br />
=== What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole <small>(29:32)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Your E-mails <small>(39:13)</small>==<br />
=== Water on Enceladus <small>(40:39)</small>===<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(46:06)</small>==<br />
<br />
{{Outro30}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jim Gibson