SGU Episode 378
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| SGU Episode 378 |
|---|
| 13th October 2012 |
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| (brief caption for the episode icon) |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
R: Rebecca Watson |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Guest |
RH: Robert Hutton |
| Quote of the Week |
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes. |
| Links |
| Download Podcast |
| SGU Podcast archive |
| Forum Discussion |
Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, October 9th, 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: Hey, how are my teammates tonight?
J: Pretty good.
S: Pretty good.
J: What's up with you?
B: Pretty good.
J: What team are we on?
E: The Fighting Space Dinosaurs!
J: Oh, of course, of course!
This Day in Skepticism ()
- Fatima Miracle of the Sun - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Miracle_of_Fatima
R: Hey, guess what today is?
E: Uhh...
R: Saturday, October 13th. Today... is the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun, which was an event in 1917, when - in which tens of thousands of people claim to have seen the Virgin Mary appearing in the sun. This is something we've talked about before, it's known as the Lady of Fatima apparition. She supposedly appeared to three shepherd children, who - and told them that she was going to a reappear soon, and so they went and told everyone, and for some reason, tons of people believed them, and everybody went out and stared at the sun, until they saw the blessed Virgin Mary. So that was October 13th, 1917. On October 13th, 1930 the event was accepted as a miracle, and on October 13th, 1951, the papal legate Cardinal Tedeschini told a million people gathered at Fatima that on October 30th, 31st, November 1st, and November 8th, 1950, Pope Pius XII also witnessed the miracle of the sun, from the Vatican Gardens.
E: The only miracle is that not everyone went blind by staring into the sun.
R: Yeah, I mean ten minutes is a long time. Depends on how carefully they stared, how long they each stared.
B: How cloudy it was.
E: And I bet you some people cheated too as they realized, wow, this really, really hurts, they kind of, maybe, averted their eyes momentarily.
S: But, Joe Nickell says, Evan, they probably weren't looking at the sun, but at a sundog or a mirage of the sun, a mock sun.
E: Yeah.
B: Really?
S: So it wasn't really as bright as looking at the sun itself, just an atmospheric effect. And of course there are as many different reports about what people saw as there were people there. Some people saw nothing, some people saw rainbow hues, some people saw the, quote-unquote, "sun dancing around". So that's consistent with an optical illusion or an atmospheric effect, it was a subjective experience by the viewer, not something objective that everybody was seeing with a reasonable similarity of accounts, so... it's pretty clearly just, that's what you get when you stare at something really bright in the sky for a long time, you're gonna start seeing weird stuff.
J: But there was some pretty serious mass delusion or hallucination, what would you call it, Steve?
S: I don't know that that's the case, I mean, I don't know that you need to invoke a mass hallucination or mass delusion, more that just some people saw some atmospheric effects or illusion, and there was a shared belief, people were there because they were looking for a miracle, they were there to see a miracle, they were there because they shared a faith, and they saw something that they interpreted in line with their faith.
B: Yeah, Jay, don't forget expectation and desire can have a huge effect on what you perceive.
S: That's all you need.
B: Big big influence.
J: Sure, definitely, I mean I've read quite a bit about this... situation, I mean, what happened there, and there were reports of people saying that everybody was drenched from a downpour and then all their clothes dried in a matter of seconds, and there's a lot of statements being made about that, and I was just wondering, I mean, this didn't actually happen that long ago, wasn't - there are people that are still alive that were there, right?
S: So, it's getting close to a hundred years, right, it's 95 years ago, so, only little kids would still be alive.
R: So, no, probably not.
J: Yeah, actually, I've read about the - it was so long ago that there were people still alive. It's a sign of the age.
(laughter)
S: Right, so, yeah, there was nothing miraculous. The thing is, accounts like that, then you have rumour, and, you know, urban legend kind of effects taking over, where you get all kinds of weird reports about what happened. I always like to think of this in terms like we have these modern episodes where we're close enough to it where you could actually look at newspaper reports of different accounts of what happened that day. You can investigate it in a way that you can't investigate, for example, miracles attributed to Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament, but, you could see how those kinds of stories would develop surrounding some kind of, just - the claim that there's something miraculous happening develops spontaneously, just imagine how superstitious farmers living 2000 years ago were.
J: Yeah.
News Items
Nobel Prizes 2012 ()
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Looking for Dyson Spheres ()
Simon Singh and Libel ()
Presidential Lie Detector ()
Who's That Noisy? ()
- Answer to last week: Magnetosphere
Questions and Emails
Proof of Heaven ()
I discovered your podcast a few months ago and I'm currently working through the back catalogue so I don't know if you've discussed this recently or not. Here's a link to a story about a neuroscientist who spent time in a coma and claims "as far as I know, no one before me has ever traveled to this dimension (a) while their cortex was completely shut down, and (b) while their body was under minute medical observation, as mine was for the full seven days of my coma." I am completely sceptical of his claims, but I'm no scientist so I was wondering about Dr Novella's opinion on what the brain might do if the cortex is shut down and how this could possibly be explained. http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/15068392/top-neurosurgeon-spent-six-days-in-heaven-during-a-coma/ I also just wanted to thank you all so much for the work you do. I'm always trying to improve my thinking through reading and informing myself about all kinds of different topics, but listening to all of you has helped me understand how vital sceptical and critical thinking is. Your podcast has helped me improve my thinking processes immeasurably and I am so grateful for it, can't get enough. I am studying to become a primary school teacher, and I now vow that if there is one thing every student will leave my class with at the end of the year is a basic concept of critical thinking skills! So there you go, knock on effect :) The world needs more people like you guys. Much love and good will, Tessa French Sydney, Australia
Interview with Robert Hutton (54:23)
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Science or Fiction ()
Segment: Science or Fiction [ Click Here to Show the Answers ] Item #1 A newly published paper claims to have found the true solution to the pioneer anomaly (the tiny excessive deceleration of the pioneer probe) in the laws of physics. http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2012/1009-interstellar-travelers-of-the-future-may-be-helped-by-mu-physicist%E2%80%99s-calculations/ Item #2 Chemists have developed a pencil that can draw functional sensors on a piece of paper. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/drawing-with-a-carbon-nanotube-pencil-1009.html Item #3 Researchers have developed a method of producing black silicon, which can be used to make semiconductor processors several thousand times faster than silicon-based processors. http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2012/october/solar-cells-made-from-black-silicon.html
Skeptical Quote of the Week ()
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes.
J: Nikola Tesla!
Announcements ()
References
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