SGU Episode 1070
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| SGU Episode 1070 |
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| January 10th 2026 |
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"Join the fun at the 2025 Not A Con! Skeptical Mystery Tour!" |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
C: Cara Santa Maria |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
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| Show Notes |
| SGU Forum |
Intro
Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Friday, May 16th and we are live at Nauticon. We have a lot of people joining us up on stage for the show. It's going to be a little bit of an unusual episode. We're going to have just some interesting conversations. But big change, big change. We've done this. Before, we've done this for many episodes on.
C: This not like our typical boring show.
S: So joining me for this episode, as usual, we have The Rogue, starting with Bob.
B: Hey everybody.
S: Tara.
C: Howdy.
S: Jay, hey, guys. And Evan? Hello everyone. And then we have our frequent special rogues. George, Rob, Andrea Jones, Roy. Hello.
US#09: Andrea.
S: Brian Wecht.
US#09: Hi, everybody.
S: Brian and this is the first time recording the SGU, but this is going to be the second time airing an episode with Adam Russell. So Adam is a big Star Wars fan and a musician. And is there anything else they need to know about you? All right, good. So we're going to start off well, you get to you'll get to know everybody a little bit more. We're going to start we have a few few interesting discussion topics lined up. We're going to start with it with a positive and hopefully an easy one. We are going to, we want everyone to say something that they are especially proud of something in your life that you're that makes you feel good about yourself. You know, you think it's a real accomplishment or just something you like about yourself or just something you're happy about. We're going to start all the way at the right, my right side with George.
US#08: I get to go first. Oh, my goodness. So yeah, I was thinking about this. And like, as someone that creates stuff, you try to be proud of the stuff you create. So like, you know, I look at an album or like, I recently restocked all my CD's and DVD's and stuff. And it was like that made me feel really good. I was really proud. But. And I know this is going to sound like I'm just buttering your buns there, Steven, but I was really proud when I was asked to write that essay about your thousandth episode. And the skeptical Enquirer reached out and said, would you write like a 3000 word essay about the, you know, the SGU about what, what they, what they mean to you and what their, their, their thousandth episode means? And it was like incredibly challenging. And it was like a ton of work and a lot of edits and a lot of back and forth. And I think it ended up really cool. I think it's going to be published, published, published next month in like the July.
J: You just saw the cover. Oh, really?
US#08: Oh yeah. So the cover. Oh, I haven't seen the cover yet, so yeah.
US#04: What's the cover?
US#08: It's just me.
US#04: Headshot of George I'm.
J: Good with that. I'm good with that. It's George with a pipe writing the article about it.
US#08: That's right. But I just, I remember I remember reading it, you know, in in where we were in Chicago. Where was that Chicago. Yeah, reading it to to you in Chicago and then sort of seeing the video online and then sort of seeing it posted online. And like I was, I was so happy with how that came out and that it represented just like 1 portion of how much I appreciate all of you and appreciate where my life has gone because I've got to know all of you. So it's a very, very, I felt good to feel good about it, you know, because it was like, you guys are awesome. And and I hit the mark. I'd like, I nailed it. So that felt really prideful.
S: Awesome. Thank you, George. Thanks, George.
US#08: Yeah.
US#10: Mine is so I'm also very proud to be able to do things with you all.
S: This is starting to sound like a Trump secretary meeting.
US#10: Yeah.
S: Oh God, tell us all how much you love us.
US#10: I just want to say our fearless leaders, well, where I was going was you didn't ask me to write an essay. So I now reject the pride. So we'll see who's proud of what, but this might be boring, but I've been reflecting about this and I do think that one of the things that I'm most proud of in my life is finishing my PHDI was I didn't know what I was signing up for when I went to grad school. I didn't know what I was doing. I had a lot of undiagnosed ADHD and mental illness. And it's in my program at the University of Michigan. It was like the the dissertation years are very, very isolated and you're really, really alone. I was terrified of my advisor. So it's just like alone, feeling bad. And then I'd go see them and they'd say, you're even worse than you thought. And you're like, Oh my God. And you go. And every day I thought about quitting and I to this day, I feel very proud that I stuck it out. And whenever I'm doing something now that's like hard, it's not going well. I'm like, well, I know that I've done it once so I can get through it.
US#08: Yeah, good answer, good answer.
US#04: Yeah, this was a, a, a, a tough one because there's so many great things about me, but I was, I was at AI went to a birthday party recently for a, a friend, not like a super close friend, but a, a friend. And we were just chatting and he's like, dude, I'm really glad you're here. I think of you as the guy who shows up. And I was like, Oh my God, that might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. You're like, when I invite you to something, you're going to go out of your way to be there. And it was the kind of thing where when he said that I was like, that's how I want to be thought of. Like I want to be thought of as a good friend who shows up. And it was just a very simple, just an offhand remark on his case. But it is really stuck with me as a nice as a nice compliment. I'm proud that this guy and hopefully other. People think of me as. The person who shows up for stuff.
US#08: Which shows how nice it is to also say that kind of stuff to people. Like if you have people in your life that, yeah, that do show up or they like, they always get you like a cool gift or they're just like, you know, you can call them and like, let them know because it can totally make an impression like that. I'm like, Oh yeah, thanks.
US#04: Yeah, and it's also, it's kind of a cliche. I live in LA and it's like a cliche in LA that people say they're going to be somewhere and then they just never cough and you don't care.
C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because.
US#04: They'll be like, yeah, traffic was bad. I didn't feel like it and believable. I think especially in Los Angeles, it's like a notable thing to make plans and stick to them.
S: I like that, Brian, because I think celebrating those those small virtues is so important. You know, because they do. They've gone there. It's easy to overlook little things like that because we have friends too, like that. Some friends, like they notoriously don't show up. When they do, they're late. And it's like, you know, it's, it sucks. It really does does suck. It does. And it's it's very annoying. And how much would it? It's like it's a systematic problem with how they live their life.
US#04: Yeah, totally.
S: You know, it's like.
US#04: It's nothing personal. Nothing.
S: But it's just they're, they're whatever, they're people. Some people are just chronic procrastinators because they are mentally underestimating how long it takes to do stuff or whatever, right? They just keep doing so. Attacked your behavioral algorithm. But also in my life.
C: Yeah, sometimes it's a lack of conscientiousness. And you're right. Like Brian comes to I have a poker table. And Brian comes and plays poker at my tournaments at home, and you're always there and you're always on time. And I do have people who at the last minute are like, oh, I'm not coming. And I'm like, well, you know, you just like ruined poker for everybody. Like you need to come. They're have, we have to have a certain number of play. You know, there's certain times people don't show up and they don't realize the impact, yeah, that it has on other people. But but showing up also means that we need to recognize the impact we have on other you showing up has an impact, which is a big deal.
S: Sometimes doing little things can really have a huge both impression and impact on the people's lives.
J: I think. I think we're always cataloguing those things and it shapes the opinion of the person we like. Brian, another thing you do is you call me and you literally go, hey dude, what's up? Like no. No agenda, no question.
US#04: Agenda. I'm just very. Good.
J: Yeah, OK, never mind. No, but I like that because it's like you had a moment, you know, I can always take a 10 minute break, you know, I work from home or whatever.
S: Like you never call me Brian. What's up? I'll.
US#04: Call you all the time, so you're going to live to regret.
S: And you keep your promises. All right, Guy Jay.
J: Yeah. I mean, this is like one of those things like, of course I'm proud of the SGU 20 year marker. And you know, I've been since I worked full time for the company and all that, but you've heard all that. So I thought I wanted to think of something else. And then, you know, I'm starting to think about things like I have been through a series of utterly, disgustingly failed relationships my whole life. It's common. It's common, though. We all do. We all, you know, most relationships fail, You know, if you're lucky, really lucky, you, you, you find the right person and, and things, you know, shape up into a place where it is a permanent thing, but you never even know if it is. But I, I want to say this, I feel so lucky that I, I grew up enough to actually become attracted to an adult. Think about that. Because I've been attracted to broken people my whole life. I think what happened was in D&D terms, I finally, whatever level I needed to get to, I got to and I was able to be attracted to an adult. And then she helped me.
US#08: You might want to amend that there.
US#09: Just, just, just just what I'm talking about.
J: I was just mature, mature, a mental adult, mental adult. Oh holy. Shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
US#08: You just might have. We we gave you the first one. The first one we gave you. He doesn't. He doesn't.
US#10: Ended after.
J: 20 years and I'm pushing hard on that adult button because to me it means something very specific. OK, so a mature older woman.
C: Courtney's going to love this too far.
US#09: Pull it back.
J: There's a name for that. Keep digging. Keep digging.
C: I'm very attracted to elderly women. Now my elderly wife, she's so.
J: My wife is so fucking old. Alright, so I finally, I finally like develop this thing. You know what I'm talking about emotionally mature to develop mutual. But then the other half of it was that my my wife actually loved me enough when she wasn't my wife at the time, but she loved me enough where she decided that she was going to help me grow up more to actually be able to really be to, to flourish in this relationship. And and I'm like, I look back and I always say, I know this is so cliche, but I'm like, how did she fall in love with me? Like, I don't deserve this person. She's, you know, I, I look still trying to figure that out. Yeah. But somehow it happened. Thank you that you proved my point. And I just feel incredibly fortunate because until I up until the moment where I really realized what our relationship was, it, it never occurred to me that I wasn't ever in the relationship that I always thought, Oh yeah, I love this person, blah, blah, blah. But this relationship was like, oh, OK, this was what I've been looking for my whole life. And a lot of the looking had to happen internally for me, which I was too dumb to realize. But when that happens, and if you're lucky enough to have that happen and that marker, you pass that marker, Oh my God, it feels so good. And I just want to thank everybody.
S: And Brian, some relationships make us a better version of ourselves and some make us a worse version of ourselves. But also you should be thinking how you could be affecting the other person in your relationship too, right? It's like that that being thoughtful thing.
J: I think I have imposter syndrome. George and I had a long talk about this one day and I really was thinking about it. And I'm like, yeah, I think I have. I think a lot of people have it like, you know, inside your head, if you're being honest with yourself, who's a trained skeptic, you know, there's a lot of like, I don't have, I'm not really good enough to do that. I don't have the skills for that. And we kind of fake it till you make it. And that's kind of how I felt in the beginning of that relationship. But now I actually feel like, no, I'm here. I I achieved it.
S: You made it.
J: Yeah.
S: So, yeah, I've thought about this a lot as well. Obviously, there's a lot of different things that I could point to, but if I'm just, I know this sound this cool, sound cheesy, but this is my honest feeling, the thing that I am most emotionally proud of. I'm gonna cry.
US#08: Holy. Crap. I didn't do anything, by the way. I didn't do anything is my two daughters. Oh.
B: Damn it, I should have gone.
S: Seriously, because they are, they're both awesome people. Now I know I don't get full credit for that. My wife and I talk about it because, you know, we, we know we both don't get full credit for it. It's just, it's partly luck of the draw, but we really worked hard to be good parents.
J: You absolutely did, Steve.
S: It was so obvious and very thoughtfully. You know, my wife is a counselor. So like, you know, we're all, you know, very thoughtfully, you know, raising our kids and they're both such awesome people. Like, I think just objectively awesome people. And my wife and I were just so proud of them in, in so many different ways. I, I just can't help but feel that's the greatest accomplishment of my life.
J: Steve, do you think it was the science fiction that did it, though?
S: I mean, it was everything I raised them to be nerds, which I stand by that decision. And it was, yeah. And birders. Yeah. And lots of things I didn't.
J: Get the players, don't forget that.
S: And, and just good people. They're both really, really good people.
J: Yeah, for sure.
S: You know, and that's the most important thing. They're just really class people. I just love that.
J: And anyone who's had kids, that is not easy. No.
S: And it's also every parent's greatest fear is that you're going to raise assholes and and you know, you don't have total control over that.
US#04: Well, especially when you see other people's kids being assholes and they're like, Oh my God. What? Yeah. Yeah. All.
S: Right.
C: Oh, what am I most proud of? I'm so bad at not preparing answers. I was thinking about it too, and I feel like there are things I could point to. Like I, you know, I've these recent accomplishments, finishing my PhD, getting my license, all that kind of stuff. But I, when I really think about where my pride is in myself, I guess. And that's what this is like digging deep and saying like, what is something that I have to show for the person I am or the life that I've lived? I think it's sort of a tie between not like the accolades that allow me to do my work, but the actual work that I do. I think I'm proud of being there for people at the end of their lives. It's a big part of my job. I've I've attended medical deaths and I've done therapy with people as they're deciding to stop treatment or as they're facing, you know, the end. And I think that that's something that's been important to my identity and to my sense of self. And then the other thing, I think it's going to sound kind of materialistic, but I actually think it goes deeper than, than it's superficial Sheen. And that's like prouder than I am of, of being Doctor Santa Maria. It's, it's that I, I'm, I own my own home, which was as a woman, I think making a decision to live for me to not live somebody else's dream and to not adapt or quiet myself and to build my own space that feels safe and that feels like mine. I don't know if I can express to the people in the audience who aren't women, especially when you're raised in in homes that aren't aren't very safe and that aren't really yours, what it feels like to accomplish something like that when everything you're told from the time that you're born is that as silly as it sounds, there's that like interview with Cher where she's talking to Diane Sawyer, I think, or Barbara Walters or somebody. And she's like, when I was young, my mom used to say, you know, when you grow up, you need to meet a rich man. You need to. And she's like, mom, I am a rich man. And like that always really resonated with me. And so I think that that's that's my pride. It's like seeing what my mother went through during her divorce, seeing so many women in my lives being utterly destroyed by being under the thumbs of men and deciding early on that, like that was never going to be me. It doesn't mean that I haven't loved. And I think looking back to to Jay, a counterpoint to something that you said not to minimize because yours is beautiful, but I don't see all of my relationships in my life as failures. I see them all as successes, even if I'm not still with the person. Like, I think that I've had a series of successful relationships in my life and those contributed to where I am. But I think the most, the thing that I'm most proud of is that I am where I am because I chose to be this way. And yes, it was a, it was a combination of luck and privilege and hard work, but I am in a place that I set out to be and I don't have like regrets. And I think that's something to be proud of.
S: Yeah, I'm having regrets as you that's. That's you, that's.
US#01: You A negative result is still data. A negative result is still data in your relationship life.
S: But just to clarify, Jay's relationships were failures.
US#10: And they're all here now.
S: You could, you could look at it as but Jay, it helped you become the person you are now.
J: I get all that. It was all very, very useful experience, yeah. I. But I mean, I mean, yeah, I, I, one of the people I dated, that I dated, we were together for seven years and the first five years were amazing. You know, we had a great five year relationship and then it took a couple of years for it to yeah, you know, undo itself. I don't regret that. I don't regret it. But you know, when I look back on it, I'm more commenting on myself. Like I I was so devastatingly immature right that there never could have been a long term success.
B: You know, but Jay, we tried to help. I mean, we told you, dude.
C: And I think my, I think my commentary is less about maturity and and failure. It's more about the fact that what's normative in our culture is dating for marriage. And so it, a lot of people think if it doesn't last forever, then you're failing on your way to the success. That's a good point. But for me, just a relationship in and of itself is the reason for the relationship. And so they're, they're all successes so long as they were consensual and we came out, you know, better people and, and caring for one another.
US#08: Cara, do you, do you feel like a special kind of safety in your own house that you don't feel other places or like?
C: 100% right, 100%.
US#08: You must, it must. It must be like, yeah, like pudding. I mean, it's got to be like the delicious, like.
C: Mine. Yeah, Yeah. And everything is exactly the way I want it. And it's the best. Yeah, it's the best.
US#10: So when's the house party?
C: Yeah.
US#09: Don't have kids?
B: More roommates.
C: My house is not child friendly. I'll tell you, there's a lot of sharp corners in there.
S: I'm.
B: Not proud of all right. And you're proud that I'm not proud of. I wish I was to the right of Steve. Damn it. What the hell, man? Did I steal your thought? Poker position, yeah, matters. I'm proud in terms of relationships. I'm proud of my second marriage. It's like, holy crap, this is like this is. What marriage can be. Wow.
S: So another example of who you're in a relationship with making you a worse person or a better.
B: Person. Oh boy, think exactly that I want to say the second thing that occurred to me was of course the SDU What what a crazy journey we've been on could have predicted anything about this. Nobody could have that, but one of the first things that occurred to me is my daughter Ashley and.
US#01: She's also awesome.
B: Oh my God. But I'm lucky, though. Steve had to work hard. I didn't have to work that hard. I did, but I didn't have to because I don't know what happened, all right? It's genetic and environment, and I'm part of that environment. And.
J: The genetics, yeah, you're.
C: About 50% of that too.
J: Hopefully you're part. Unless you're telling us something, we. Didn't know.
B: Aren't you a twin? I would explain a lot.
J: I probably ask.
B: Wait, I got to think about this. All right. So, yeah, but I had, I mean, I can't control the genetics, yeah, but I can control the her environment. And I'm just trying to think, what the hell did I do? So special to to get this kid that it's just like every time I talk. To her, it's like, holy crap. How did I have any part in this? It's it just amazes me. Yeah, she's just, she's just incredible. I'm so proud of her. I tell her all the time, it's ridiculous. And I'm just, I'm proud. But I'm also so lucky because, I mean, I just rolled thirty 20s in a row for that because like, wow. She was just so such an easy kid and I've seen other kids growing up, there's so much variation and so much in terms of how much work that needs to be done. And I'm just happy that she was that easy, but so proud of her that she's an amazing kid. So that's all I.
US#08: Got I'm curious in the audience with one clap, how many parents do we have one clap And are your kids assholes?
E: Honesty. One honest parent. One honest. Person.
US#09: Don't even hesitate.
S: All right.
E: Evan, was it me?
S: Yeah, can't say. Your daughter. So we'll take that as a given.
C: She's in the room. I'm.
E: Right here. Speak your truth, Evan, whatever it is. All right, I'm going to say what I was going to say anyway.
US#01: All right, go ahead.
E: Pride's a sin, first of all, and I only bring thank you. And I only bring that up because I've, I don't know that I've ever really sat and reflected on what I'm proud of in my, about myself. I don't know. I, I detect it for myself. It's a little uncomfortable for me to do so. I'm still living this life and I still have hopefully many, many, many years to continue to prove myself that, you know, I'm doing all right and treating other people as, you know, as I want to be treated as well. So I think the jury's still out on that. I'll make an assessment when I'm towards the end of my life. But with that all said, two things that definitely were mentioned before that have to come up when you're a parent and especially a father, two daughters, like like, you know, Steve, Bob, Jay, Bryan is as well. That is just a such a special relationship, like no other relationship a a man can have in his life. So it's totally normal for that to be the number one source of pride in a in a father's life, especially to a daughter. So in a sense, yes, it does go without saying and everything that comes with it. But to that point, my father, I have two sisters. I'm an, I'm an only brother. The bells are my real brothers. But I can, I consider them my brothers, but I have two, I have two sisters. Grew up, you know, my, my father was very old fashioned, if I can use the term, you know, very much non politically correct in a lot of ways. Definitely, you know, a product of the, the 40s and the 50s growing up in that, in that lifestyle. And that translated to how he parented us. You know, nobody's perfect, but there were a lot of faults there. There were a lot of problems he had in, in raising daughters specifically. He treated me differently, not better, just different. I, I seem to have the coping skills to deal with his, you know, issues being, you know, the father, but my sisters didn't. And it it very, very toxic relationships with both the daughters. And as I'm growing up, I'm a, I'm a boy, I'm 1011 years old thinking about this and two things. I want to be a parent someday myself #1 and #2 if I ever had a daughter, I don't want to be my father to, to, to the way they were in my daughters. I was very conscious of that very early in life and carried that with me until I was eventually in my young 30s and finally did become a father to a daughter. And and I've done that and I'm extremely proud of myself that I was able to fulfill that promise I made to myself all those years ago. Yeah. So that's my number one thing. And the other, and the second thing I'm also proud of is probably also my education in because I had to basically pay for it entirely myself. I put myself through my bachelor's degree. My parents couldn't afford to really send me to school, so I had to just do it myself. And while everyone else was off taking their summer breaks and doing their vacations and spring break and all that stuff, I spent every minute working so I could earn money so I could pay for it and got through my bachelor's degree with no student loans. I paid it all. So I was very proud of that too.
US#01: Nice.
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