SGU Episode 358
Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality. S: Hello and welcome to the Skepitcs' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday May 23rd 2012 and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.
B: Hey everybody.
S: Jay Novella.
J: Hey guys.
S: Evan Bernstein.
E: Good evening.
S: And we have a special guest this week, Joshie Berger. Joshie, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.
JB: Shalome.
S: How are you doing my friend?
E: Shalome, baby.
JB: Excellent, I'm so excited, TAM is right around the corner and I just can't wait to be a part of this all.
S: Well we're bringing you on today, first because you're a friend and a fellow skeptic and doing good work out there but also because you're going to, you came to us with an idea about how we could punch up TAM a little bit, add an extra event that seems entirely appropriate so why don't we, well actually we're going to start off with This Day in Skepticism and then we're going to get to that, we're going to talk about your TAM idea. So Evan, Rebecca's not here because she's at a conference in Germany.
E: That's what I hear.
This Day in Skepticism (1:05)
May 26, 1676 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek applied his hobby of making microscopes from his own handmade lenses to observe some water running off a roof during a heavy rainstorm. He finds that it contains, in his words, "very little animalcules."
S: So you're going to do This Day in Skepticism today.
E: That's right. And I'll be doing this by doing this by reading from a diary entry that dates back to 1676 on May the 26th. Here it is. It rained very hard. The rain abating somewhat, I took a clean glass and got rain water that came off the slate roof, fetched it in after the glass had first been swilled out two or three times with the rainwater. I then examined it, and therein discovered some very few little animals, and seeing them, I bethought me whether they may not have been bred in the leaden gutters in any water standing in them. The rain continued the whole day. I took a big porcelain dish and put in my courtyard in the open air upon a wooden tub about a foot and a half high, considering that thus, no earthy particles would be splashed into the dish. With the water first caught, I swilled out the dish and the glass in which I meant to preserve the water, and then flung this water away then collected water anew. Upon examining it I could discover therein no living creatures but merely a lot of irregular earthly particles. And there it was in 1676 on this day Antonie van Leeuwenhoek applied his hobby of making microscopes from his own handmade lenses to observe some water running off the roof and compared it to water he collected from the natural rains.
J: And what did he call those creatures Evan?
B: Animacules?
E: Animalcules.
S: Animalcules. Isn't that a cute little name?
J: Yeah, when I first heard that word, I actually thought that one of Steve's daughters came up with it, I didn't know like it was from history.
E: It is, it's like, it's such of like a Sesame Street sort of phrase, in a modern context, animalcules. It's like geranimals or something.
S: Right.
B: He should have called them nanomals.
S: Nanomals, yeah.
E: Well, you know.
J: Bob, the word nano didn't even exist then.
S: And they weren't nano, they were micro. So micro...
B: Micranomals.
S: Micranamals?
J: I used to... do you guys, do you guys remember the micronaughts?
S: Oh yeah.
J: The kids, they were like kids, uh like you know, like it was for, little boys like those little men and they had vehicles and stuff, awesome shit.
JB: No.
(laughter)
S: Joshie, you didn't play with micronaughts when you were younger?
J: You were playing with the dradle Josie, right?
JB: No no no no, to be really fair, my parents had to sign a paper before I went to Yeshiva that they didn't have a TV but they really did, my parents were like from the bullshitting type of hasedem, and but they had a lock on their TV in their room that we couldn't watch it, but when they would go out, me and my brother figured out how to open the lock actually and then we could constantly call them to find out when they were coming home because we knew that the back of the TV was getting hot and we had to go and put a pack of ice on it when they said they were like 20 minutes away because otherwise my mother would put her hand on it and say, all right who was watching TV so we had to gauge it but I was actually watching the A-Team and like things like that when I was like already 12, 13 years old. Ssh don't tell anyone, I hope this podcast is not like out there.
S: No, no.
B: Can you imagine Joshie at 12 or 13? Oh my god.
S: I imagine he was pretty much the same.
(laughter)
News Items
TAM Poker Tournament (04:15)
Space X Launch ( )
Studying the Universe ( )
What Is Consciousness ( )
- http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/what-is-consciousness-another-reply-to-kastrup/
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLRckO0zCJQ&feature=related
Who's That Noisy? ( )
Answer to last week: Holocaust Deniers.
Questions and Emails
Speaking to Mediums ( )
I love your podcast. I've been listening to it for a couple a months and I'm pleased to say that I am "converted" to Skepticism. Did you know that in Portugal our dead speak English? We have a TV show here called "Depois da Vida", that means "Life after Life". On each week the medium Janet Parker allegedly listens to dead people related to a guest celebrity. The person hosting the show does the translations between the two. Since the medium apparently doesn't speak Portuguese, we may conclude that the dead related to our Portuguese celebrities have to speak English to the medium. She then speaks in English to the host; the host translates it to the guest. Continue with your great work. Regards LuÃs Pratas Lisbon, Portugal.
Swindler's List ( )
Hearing Aids
Science or Fiction ( )
Item number one. An iridescent blue tarantula. Item number two. A cactus that can "walk" short distances across the desert in search of water. Item number three. A fungus that looks and behaves so much like a sponge it was named Spongiforma squarepantsii. And item number four. A snub-nosed monkey from Myanmar that sneezes every time it rains.
Skeptical Quote of the Week ( )
No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.
J: Richard Feynman!
Announcements ( )
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