SGU Episode 347

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Skeptical Rogues

• S: Steven Novella
• B: Bob Novella
• R: Rebecca Watson
• J: Jay Novella
• E: Evan Bernstein

• SS: Scott Sigler

Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, March 8th 2012, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella

B: Hey everybody

S: Rebecca Watson

R: Hello everyone

S: Jay Novella

J: Hey guys

S: and Evan Bernstein

E: My skeptical friends, how are you?

S: We are fine

R: Good!

This Day in Skepticism (0:31)

R: Guess what today is?

J: 'I'm just a guy' day

R: Every day is 'I'm just a guy' day. No, on today, the day that this will go out, March 10th, in 1797, Thomas Jefferson presented a paper on the megalonyx to the American Philosophical Society. The paper was called "A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia" [1]. Not really a short title but-

S: Pithy

E: Doesn't really roll off the tongue exactly

R: No. It was one of the first, if not the first archeological paper presented in the US

E: Really?

R: By Thomas Jefferson

S: Yeah, some people give Jefferson credit for beginning paleontology in the United States.

R: Paleontology is what I meant to say. I said archeological (laughs)

S: See

E: Oh gosh

S: It's an easy mistake to make, vertebrate paleontology, I should say vertebrate paleontology.

R: Yeah, and he was vice-President at the time that he presented the paper. So, just imagine today's vice-President giving a paper at a scientific conference

S: Well, Al Gore invented the internet, Rebecca, and he was vice-President

R: That's true, yeah, we do still. We have politicians that are interested in the sciences. But there aren't very many out there that are actual scientists. So it's nice to remember that, once upon a time, there was a real serious, scientist President.

S: Do you know what megalonyx means?

R: Yes, I do, it means "big claw"and Jefferson thought that it was a lion, and, in fact, he thought it was a lion that still existed because Jefferson, like many people at the time, did not believe in the new-fangled theory of evolution. Specifically, he didn't believe that any species had ever gone extinct. And so to prove that, he was sure that the megalonyx would eventually be found living. And when Lewis and Clark went out on their expedition he asked them to keep an eye out for what he thought was this giant, clawed lion. Of course they did not find it, because it had long been extinct. and it was in fact a giant sloth, which is probably the most fearsome sloth that has ever lived, which isn't saying much. No, it wasn't even big by giant sloth standards, it was about a medium-sized giant sloth. But it apparently lived all over the US, and in 1822, well in 1799 Dr Caspar Wistar is the person who identified the remains as being from a giant sloth. And in 1822, he proposed naming it megalonyx jeffersonii, in honor of Jefferson. Who was wrong, about the extinction thing. and the lion thing.

S: He was wrong, yeah he believed in this 'completeness of nature' notion which is, I guess, that nature is complete. You know, it's just one cohesive fabric that all fits together intricately, and is static. Which kind of just went along with the view of the universe at the time, you know. People thought that the universe was static, that the world was static, and that nature was static. Very different to the view that we have today, which is very much evolutionary, that is almost a complete paradigm shift that has occurred in the way that we think of nature.

R: Yep

S: Very cool

News Items

Robot Cheetah (4:16)

BBC News: Robotic cheetah 'breaks speed record for legged robots'

S: Right, well let's move on to some news items, Bob, you're going to tell us about the robot cheetah

B: A few years ago, I remember seeing a CG ad in a magazine featuring this incredible robot cheetah, it was probably one of the coolest robot designs I had ever seen. But it seems now that such a beast is closer to reality than I actually thought. Researchers have now created a robot inspired by cheetahs, that is the fastest land robot ever, running at 18mph, or, for those metrically inclined, 29km/h. If you see the video, it's really cool, it actually seems like it's running much faster than 18mph. What's one of the unusual things about about the robot itself is that there is no real legs, the legs are kind of, they taper down to these points, it's kind of running on the back edge of these pointy legs. So it looks a bit unusual, not terribly cheetah like. But the people behind this future quadruped terminator, are DARPA, we've talked about them many times - the US government's advanced research agency, and one of my favorite companies, Boston Dynamics in Waltham, Massachusetts. I'm sure you guys have heard of them, we've talked about them a couple of times. They have developed two incredible robots, one of them is BigDog, which is now- they've created a bigger cousin of him called AlphaDog, and this one is the best, it's incredible, it can carry 400 lbs of military gear, it can climb 35&deg slopes. And the cool thing about this robot that Boston Dynamics makes, is that it can balance itself so well, that it looks actually animal-like as it does it, on slippery ice, or you could even- you have these guys running up and kicking it, and it moves it's leg in such a way that it maintains it's balance (youTube video). The first time I saw the video of that robot, I literally giggled like a little girl, it's soo amazing, and so lifelike.

S: (teasing) like a little girl

(laughter)

J: Wait a minute, Bob, seriously, you watched the robot and you were like (giggles like a little girl)

(laughter)

B: Well, I wouldn't say giggle, when I see something really cool like that, that takes my breath away, I wouldn't say I giggled, I let out an involuntary laugh, whatever (laughs). So, and more recently, they came out with PETMAN (youTube video) which is this bipedal, headless human-like robot that's designed like a soldier, so they can test military clothing and gear - or so they claim. But this latest bio-inspired robot is primarily designed to run really fast. And if you wanna be inspired by a fast land animal, there's obviously nothing better than a cheetah. Can you guys guess what primary feature they copied from the cheetah to help them achieve it's speed?

R: Spots.

E: It's skin?

J: It's shape?

S: It's flexible spine?

B: Yeah, very good, it's the flexible spine. If you watch a video of a cheetah running at top speed in slow motion, it's really dramatic. You can clearly see that its spine flexes to a tremendous degree. And by flexing it's spine with each step, it increases both it's stride and it's speed. And the spine also acts like a spring for the back legs, that's one of the key components that helps it run as fast as, what, 60 or 70mph. And this is exactly what the robot cheetah does. It's flexible spine helps it run faster than the average human. Now, of course, top athletes still run much faster, I think the fastest a human's been clocked at is about 28mph, so about 10mph faster, but really, how long could it be until no human could ever catch this thing in a race. I was trying to think what are they really going to use this thing for? What they're saying, is that they're trying to design it so that it can run zig-zags and chase and evade, that's one of the big things they're working on. They also want to use this as a tool for emergency response, so maybe looking through disaster sites for survivors and things like that. I think they'd have to make kitten-sized ones for that. But other options include fire-fighting and advanced agriculture, even vehicular travel - which doesn't sound very comfortable to me, although it could be fun for a little while-

S: Well, like a horse, a robotic horse.

B: I guess.

S: That would be kinda neat.

B: But if the spine is going up and down as much as a cheetah, I'm not sure how comfortable that would be.

E: You could get a cheetah saddle

R: Yeah, He-man had one of those

(laughter)

E: Exactly

J: or springs, like shock absorbers

S: When he rode Cheetara, is that what you're saying?

J: (laughs) oh my god, you remember the name

E: 'Give me the power'

R: (laughs) I'm sorry, but can we talk more about the fact that Steve just referenced He-man/Cheetara slash-fiction. I'm pretty sure that's what just happened

S: Yeah

J: We watched all that as kids

R: You know that Cheetara is ThunderCats[2], right? She's the girl ThunderCats. So He-man riding Cheetara is a sexual image. God, you guys!

E: Wow

R: Don't make me spell it out

J: Oh my god, that's awesome

E: I wanted to strangle that little wizard thing, that thing was annoying as hell.

B: Oh my god, right? it was Wizzo or something, right?

(laughter) ?? R: Snarf? no, that was the ThunderCats guy

E: Yeah, the 'Twinky' of He-man, right?

J: Twinky was so bad!

B: Horrible.

E: Terrible.

R: I'm sorry

S: Anywho,

B: In case you're wondering, for the immediate future, there's plans for a mid-2012 field-test for this guy, free-running though. Because, in the video, you'll see that the thing has an arm that connects a power-supply, and things like that. But they're going to have a free-running one this year, maybe in a few months, so I'd love to see a video of that.

Kony 2012 (9:48)

Kony 2012 video

S: so, Rebecca, tell us about this Kony character

R: Yeah, this has sort of taken the internet by storm this week. A 30-minute video was published by the charity 'Invisible Children' which encouraged people to join together to campaign to bring Joseph Kony to justice. Now, Kony is the leader of the 'Lord's Resistance Army' , which is a Christian extremist rebel group who have claimed that their goal is to obtain a theocracy in Uganda, and they would base everything on the ten commandments. Which, yeah, sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately there are- I was just being ironic there, before we get some angry emails

E: There's 15 commandments.

R: (laughs) They don't do so well at actually following any of the commandments, even the good ones. They are most notable for their sheer brutality, and particularly for their use of child soldiers as the bulk of their ranks. The children are kidnapped, and the boys are brainwashed, and the girls are used as sex-slaves. The child soldiers are then used to conduct terrorist activities throughout Uganda, and the surrounding areas. And this has been happening for more than 25 years. So, enter 'Invisible Children', with a very slick campaign that quickly went viral on Twitter and Facebook. The video describes Kony's actions, and claims that 'Invisible Children's goal is to make Kony famous so that he can't hide any longer. It's a really beautifully edited video, and they direct people to donate money to their cause and spread awareness, you can write in and get a kit that includes some trendy bracelets, you know, one for you, and one to give to a friend to spread the word and more info on how you can participate. They call out several celebrities and politicians that you can pressure for awareness and to take action.
It caught on so quickly, that by the time I woke up yesterday morning, I had several emails from people asking me to watch and learn and donate. I did watch, but while I was really impressed, and also moved, I was a little put-off. Because the entire video was very split in terms of race. For instance, black people were either the victims of horrible atrocities, or the monster - Joseph Kony. And white people were universally the saviors, nearly every person in every image shown to be helping the cause was a white person. But I was willing to set that aside, with the understanding that maybe was maybe those whiffs of colonialism and the 'white man's burden' were just a side-effect of a campaign that was aimed at raising awareness amongst a group that otherwise might not care much about the African people. But I did a little digging, and as the day wore on, my research got easier and easier, because as the video gained steam online, so did an equal and opposite skeptical response. So, by the end of the day, there were articles in the mainstream press that were very critical of the Kony 2012 effort and a response from 'Invisible Children', and it had already gone back and forth several times, and it was actually quite impressive to see such an immediate skeptical reaction. That is to- I'll just state outright that I'm not talking about a cynical reaction, but a true skeptical reaction that was critically looking at the claims of 'Invisible Children'.
So, I'll give you a quick overview of some of the criticisms. One of what I feel are the lesser criticisms, is how 'Invisible Children' operates as a charity. There are some who feel that not enough funds go to actually helping the children who are affected by Kony, and there are a lot of people that feel that 'Invisible Children' isn't trustworthy. And they link to Charity Navigator, which is great for evaluating a lot of non-profits, but Charity Navigator gives them three out of four stars, which is pretty good. They give them two stars for accountability and transparency, but 'Invisible Children' answered that by saying that's because they only have four independent board members out of five, and they're currently interviewing for a fifth. 'Invisible Children' are also accused of exaggeration and fact manipulation. Though it's hard to see how you could exaggerate the crimes of Kony, or if you were able to, what problem that would possibly be. But they are accused of exaggerating his crimes, even though he is admittedly, objectively, a monster. But there are facts that the video really down-plays or misrepresents that are important. Like the fact that Kony isn't even in Uganda any more, and he hasn't been there for six years. And there's also the fact that the Lord's Resistance Army is comprised of a few hundred soldiers, not 30,000 child soldiers as the video represents. That number comes from the estimated number of abducted children over the past 30 years, not what they have currently.
A much more important criticism, I think, is that 'Invisible Children' created a film that was 30 minutes long, but they still didn't manage to fully articulate what they are asking their Western audience to do. To most people who are caught up in the excitement of the campaign, they're just helping bring a war criminal to justice. Which is an action that I think we can all agree is good. But it's also overly simplistic. Particularly because the tactics you need in order to bring a war criminal to justice are not simple at all. 'Invisible Children' aren't just asking people to be aware of Kony, their goal is to creat enough demand for Kony's capture, that the US government is pressured into acting. They're very clear that they want US intervention in Uganda, with US forces supporting the Ugandan military's efforts to capture Kony. And that's not necessarily a great thing. For instance, supporting the Ugandan military means supporting a group that has also been known to rape and kill indiscriminately. They're not necessarily 'good guys' in the way that the video represents. While Kony's soldiers were kidnapping children soldiers, the Ugandan government was forcing northern Ugandan people into concentration camps with horrific living conditions, and failing to provide adequate protection against Kony.

S: So they're trying to manipulate the media to get the the US to intervene on one side in what's essentially a civil war? is that what you're saying?

R: er, yeah. That is a good way to put it. In the video, they name Kony as the sole bad guy, and they completely fail to place him into any kind of context and call the Ugandan government into account, particularly the President, who is Yoweri Museveni. He hasn't stopped Kony, despite being in power for more than 25 years now, which happens to be exactly as long as Kony has been waging this war. So, will sending in US troops to work with the Ugandan military be a good thing? Who knows? The video also glosses over the fact that Obama already sent troops to Uganda to do that very thing. In 2008, the US Africa command attempted to find and assassinate Kony, at his base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But that plan was a complete disaster, and they didn't even come close. Kony had already left that base, long before they even got there. That mission and others have only resulted in more deadly counter-strikes from the LRA, as well as multiple ruined peace-talks. Despite that, Obama pledged 100 more troops to the region last year, due mostly to advocacy efforts like 'Invisible Children'. So, what happens if those new US advisors still aren't able to capture Kony? Will the next action involve military strikes? And what happens if they find Kony and he's surrounded by children holding guns. Does the US fire on them? There's a lot of really hard questions that are completely avoided.
There's a lot more to this story, and I've skipped some completely valid criticisms of 'Invisible Children' in order to make this as short as possible. I know it's already super-long. But hopefully that gives you some idea of how complicated these issues are, and how overly-simplified 'Invisible Children' has made it in order to get American's excited about a continued military intervention. Which is remarkable really, they're getting a huge amount of support from people who probably didn't support US intervention in other recent cases, because they make it seem like we're watching a genocide happen, like in Rwanda, but that this time we can stop it. If we only send troops. And just to briefly conclude, I'll say that a few people have written in in the last day specifically asking if 'Invisible Children' is running a scam. So I want to be really clear here. I don't think that they're running a scam, in fact I 'm confident that they're not. I think that they really believe in what they're doing, and that they believe that military intervention is necessary to capture Kony and bring about some kind of peace. Whether or not that's true, I think is up to each of you to do the research, go beyond the video that you watch, actually find out what's been happening in Uganda and surrounding areas, and then decide yourself whether this is something you want to support.

S: Right, but first, you need to be skeptical about the simplistic story that's being circulated on the internet, but it sounds like the real information was there as well.

R: Yeah, and the nice thing is, it happened pretty quickly, you know, within the day, there were mainstream publications that were responding with what I thought were very well thought-out criticisms, not just knee-jerk, like "oh, slacktivism, kids getting excited". No, they were true criticisms that I think helped to put everything into context.

Neuroprosthetics (20:00)

NeuroLogica Blog: Natural Feeling Neuroprosthetics

S: Let's move on to another news item, we have a couple more left. This one involves Neuroprosthetics. We talk a lot about the path of future technology, which of course we cannot predict. But one thing that I've been following closely, and blogging about frequently is brain-machine interfaces, the ability to have our brains actually communicate with a computer chip. Once we can accomplish that, once we can have this sort of two-way communication between the machine and the brain, that opens up a whole new technology paradigm where we can be controlling prosthetic devices and machines in our environment and everything directly with our thinking, where we could actually have telepathy where, if I have a computer in my head, and you have a computer in your head, then they can be communicating to each other wirelessly, well that's telepathy. But one question is, how well will our brains adapt to these neuroprosthetics? These brain-machine interfaces. That still is an open question, and there's a new bit of research that does illuminate this question a little bit, but before I get to that, just for a little more background. The question is, what are the limits of neuroplasticity? Plasticity is the ability of the brain to re-wire itself in response to new tasks, new requirements, or healing from injury. If you have a stroke, for example, that damages one part of your brain, other parts of your brain, over months and years, can actually re-wire itself in order to take over for that lost function. It's never quite as good though. There are limits to the degree to which our brains can re-wire themselves. Those limits increase with age, as we get older, neuroplasticity doesn't go away entirely, but it does attenuate. Infants are much more able to compensate for, or repair, damage than older adults, for example. So let's say, if you get your hand cut off in a lightsaber accident, and reattach a new artificial robotic hand, would your brain be able to adapt to and feel that artificial limb as if it's natural. Would it feel like it's part of you. What are the limits of neural plasticity? or let's take it one step further, what if you attached an extra arm to your body. Would your brain be able to mould itself, and adapt to actually map to an additional limb, something that never existed before, and not just replacing a part of the body that was there before.

R: So, like a Doc-Oc situation

S: Yeah, right. Exactly, but without the artificial intelligence intervening. Could your brain directly control those extra limbs. The optimistic view is, yes, because of neuroplasticity. The pessimitics view is: yeah, but that plasticity is limited, and may never feel natural control, may never be complete, and that could ultimately be a limitation on any sort of brain-machine interface. The recent study was really interesting, it doesn't answer this question for us, first of all, it's just one little bit of information that is encouraging. What researchers did, is they hooked up a machine to rat brains, and the machine created a tone that the rats were able to control by altering their brain waves, by thinking one way or another[3]. And through feedback, they were able to learn to either produce a high-pitched tone, or a low-pitched tone, and they were given rewards, they would either get a food reward, or a sugar-water reward based on which type of tone that they produced. The rats were able to quickly learn how to modulate their thoughts in order to produce the tone that they wanted in order to obtain either food or water. Now, obviously we can't know exactly what the rats wanted, but they were able to obtain food and water in a balanced way, in a way that would make sense in terms of what they needed. So it seemed as if they could control whether they were producing a high-pitched tone, or a low-pitched tone.
However, this is the specific answer that this was addressing: in previous studies when animals or subjects modulate their thoughts to control something external, to control a computer, to interface with a machine, there's also a physical movement involved, and the question is, is that physical movement necessary? What they did here is that the rats had to manipulate these tones, however, without twitching their whiskers. The machines were reading the neurons that are used to twitch the whiskers, but they had to activate those neurons without twitching their whiskers. So that makes sense, they were able to do it without the accompanying motor action. And that was the new bit that hasn't been established before. And this is encouraging in terms of the adaptability of vertebrate brains to these interfaces. So, it's not just a proxy for a brain control that's already in place, it's a new type of brain control that does not relate to something that's already existing.

B: That's awesome.

S: Yeah, it does make it seem- it is one little notch on the plasticity side of, yes, are brains would be able to adapt pretty well to brain-machine interfaces. It's not yet the Matrix, obviously we're no-where near that level of things. But it's one baby-step in that direction. This is one of those things, you know, I think, and I speculated about this in my blog, is this going to be the flying car that's always gonna be 20-years away?

(general sounds of agreement)

J: I was just thinking that

S: Or is this going to be the iphone, where one day we're going to turn around and go "wow! when did this happen? this is awesome. You know, suddenly-

E: A new ipad

S: yeah, suddenly we're controlling everything with out minds, you know, and... or the idea of being paralyzed becomes a thing of the past, you know, anyone that's paralyzed, you just slap on a neuroprosthetic and you can control those artificial limbs with your mind.

E: Steve, do you think, with the plasticity of the brain, and adults have, they can't really- they're stuck in certain- their brain can't adjust-

S: Well, it's limited

E: Yeah, limited. Do you think maybe they would put something in between the brain and the actual prosthetic to help them along. Like another artificial brain of some kind to help get those-

S: Well, yeah, almost by definition

E: -acts as a bridge

S: Well, yeah, that's almost by definition, Evan, yes. That's where there is a computer which is controlling the prosthetic and communicating to the brain.

E: so therefore, that seems to be, like, kind of the hinging point of most of this technology. And I think we might be able to make some predictions based on how sophisticated we can develop that technology.

S: Yeah, so certainly artificial intelligence plays a role here too. The greater the artificial intelligence, the more that would be able to compensate for any imperfections in the brain-machine interface itself. Does that make sense? So, you end up having not just your brain controlling a dumb machine, but almost a symbiotic relationship between your mind and a computer 'mind' that then interfaces with an external reality. Whether that's operating stuff, or controlling a prosthetic attached to your own body, or flying a ship, or driving a car, or typing with your thoughts alone, whatever it is.

E: I would tend to think that we had decent hopes for that.

S: Yeah

E: for that piece of the technology

S: Yeah, I think it's a matter of when, not if. And I think it's a matter of how it will feel, how natural it will be. You also could think about, you know, will we be fixing infants with neuroprosthetics or brain-machine interfaces

B: &agrave la borg, baby borg

S: Yeah, you get youe brain-cap on there shortly after born, so that as your brain matures and develops, it matures with the brain-machine interface. That will definitely work a lot better and a lot easier than trying to put it on an adult brain which is already fully developed, unless we develop still other technologies that allow the adult brain to have the plasticity of an infant brain - stem cells, or something else.

J: Yeah, I was just thinking of that. But then there's also the problem of obsolete technology. I can't imagine getting technology in my body when I'm like a kid, and in 20 years, it would be like a model T. They would have to design it to some, you know, firm-ware upgrade or even easy hardware upgrades to a certain extent.

Quickie with Bob - QWERTY Effect (29:28) 

ScienceDaily: The Right Type of Words: Words Spelled On Right Side of Keyboards Lead to More Positive Emotions E: I want a quickie with Bob this week

B: This week on your 'Quickie with Bob', I'm gong to talk about the QWERTY effect. Cognitive scientists at the University College London have concluded that a mundane, ubiquitous QWERTY keyboard can actually reshape the meanings of words. As we all know, the QWERTY keyboard got it's name from the first six letters on the top row of the keyboard, and millions of people use it every day. But it's long been believed that the arrangement of the keys is very inefficient, since common words and letters often require either the left hand to type them, or the fingers to leave the 'home row'. So, it this supposed inefficiency that has perhaps caused this universal typewriter to affect the way we perceive the words that we type on them.
These researchers studied English, Spanish and Dutch words on typewriters, and how people perceive those words, and for all three languages, the perception of words that required more right-hand typing were more positive than words that needed mostly left-hand typing. This correlation was unrelated to the length of the word, repeated letters, or, and most surprisingly, whether you are left-handed or right-handed. The same effect is also seen for fictitious words like "glip", and it was more pronounced for abbreviations and new words, like LOL. Keep in mind, this is a fairly subtle effect, and how we feel about these words doesn't change quickly. It's a slow accumulation over time. It's not as far-fetched as it might seem. For most people, using your right hand to type is easier than the left, and obviously, what's easier is often seen more positively. And also, since the was you say a word can have a big impact on it's meaning, so why not how you type it. Especially as we seem to be texting and typing so much everyday. So when you name your kids or pets in the future, you might want to go for Molly or Kim, and not Rebecca.

R: I am insulted by that science.

(laughter)

E: I think about a third of our audience might not know what a typewriter is

S: You could say keyboard.

R: They should, typewriter is the longest word you can type with the top row of typewriter keys

J: Yes, that's right

Skeptical Quote of the Week ( )

"You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown– only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood." Captain James Tiberius Kirk

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