SGU Episode 381
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| SGU Episode 381 |
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| 3rd November 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 |
| Quote of the Week |
Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality. |
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| Forum Discussion |
Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
This Day in Skepticism (1:28)
November 3, 1957 Sputnik 2 launched
In Memorium
Paul Kurtz (3:45)
- 1925-2012
S: Well, we are going to start the new segment of the show with an in memoriam. We do like to, on the Skeptic's Guide, pause to remember those members of the skeptical community who have passed, and Paul Kurtz died several days ago, just the day before the organizers were coming down to the conference. He died on Sunday. He was 85 years old. It was 1925 to 2012, so that is 86. I can do math. (audience laughter) You'll know why i was confused in a moment.
R: 'Cause you're terrible at math?
S: Yes. So, before we get the show started, Ron Lindsay and Kendrick Frazier talked about Paul Kurtz. You know, he was one of the giants of the skeptical movement, of the skeptical community. You know, he was largely responsible for organizing the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, founding Prometheus Books, CFI, Secular Humanism. He was an academic, a philosopher. He really gave a lot of weight to the movement early on. He made it to that – he broke it to that next level. It wasn't that, you know, before he came on board. So he has to be remembered for that. We did have some interactions with Paul along the years. The first year that we started – (audience cooing)
R: Baby Steve!
E: Aww.
S: I was a little younger back then.
R: He's three years old there.
B: He's only half-grey there.
S: (laughing) I'm only half-grey!
E: A little less grey, yep.
S: You can mark my age by my greyness up until about ten years ago, when i went totally grey. Right when we got started, in 1996, you know, CSICOP, now CSI, you know, they were the big national skeptical organization. They'd definitely – They took us under their wing, you know, gave us their support, their local membership list, so that we could get our movement going. And i remember meeting Paul at the first World Skeptics Conference, and he was immediately—like, you know, your grandfather—like, you know, very, very comfortably took on that air of being a mentor. It's like, "Yeah, this is great. You're welcome to the skeptical movement." So i definitely remember him fondly in that way. A few years later, Paul organized a meeting of the local skeptical groups. In the picture here you can see me again with Bob, Perry, and Evan. The four of us came up together –
J: Now, if i remember correctly, Rebecca, you and i were off being badass somewhere else, right?
R: I think that's what was happening, yeah.
S: – and, i think, in the foreground, that's Colonel Joe Nickell, isn't it?
E: Colonel.
S: Yeah, he had broke his leg in Spain, or something?
R: Round of applause for Colonel Joe Nickell!
E: I remember that.
(applause)
S: Joe actually is going to come up, and he's going to read a poem that he wrote, i believe, about Paul.
JN: Paul was a great supporter of the arts, and i hope he would have liked this. The poem is called "Book of Seasons: An elegy". (Uncertain re: permission to reproduce poem)
S: Thank you, Joe.
Leon Jaroff (7:34)
- 1926-2012
S: This same weekend, Saturday before the show, Leon Jaroff also died. He was 85, hence my confusion. So, Leon Jariff—not a big name in the skeptical community recently, and if you ask, you know, people at conventions like this if they knew who he was – I mean, in fact, right before the show Rebecca said to me, "Who's Leon Jaroff?"
R: (indignant gasp)
S: Sorry, Rebecca.
(audience laughter)
S: But he was perhaps one of the most skeptical journalists that we have had.
B: Yeah.
S: He was the science columnist for Time Magazine. It was he who said, "You know, popularizing science is important, you know, we should start a science-dedicated magazine." And that was Discover Magazine. That was him. He was not afraid to be a hard-nosed skeptic when writing about scientific issues. So, for example, when writing about chiropractors, he wrote,
Chiropractors also employ a bewildering variety of weird practices to diagnose their patients. Some use applied kinesiology, a muscle test that supposedly can diagnose allergies and diseased organs. Hair analysis and iris readings are commonplace in the profession. Even sillier are many of the treatments that chiropractors use and recommend: homeopathic potions, colon irrigation, magnetic therapy, enzyme pills, colored-light therapy, and something called "balancing body energy," among other mystical procedures with undocumented effects.
S: That's from a mainstream journalist writing in Time Magazine. Do we see this kind of thing today? I don't think so.
B: Nope.
(audience applause)
S: So, you know, we do have to, I think, also note the support that Jaroff gave to such a good science journalism, and that kind of hard-nosed, skeptical science journalism is definitely something we miss. That's a void that, I think, that we in the skeptical community have to fill, but, unfortunately, it is a void.
News Items
Big Bang Conference at CERN (9:31)
S: Rebecca –
R: Yes!
S: – this is a different quote. It's not as good a quote.
Science in isolation is great for producing stuff, but not so good for producing ideas.
R: Mm-hmm.
S: Who said that?
R: That was said by Andrew Pinsent at the Ramsey Center for Science and Religion. What i particularly liked about this quote is that it is completely reversed – it is the exact opposite of what i would have suggested.
S: Mm-hmm.
R: I would say that science is actually really good at ideas, but, in order to produce stuff, you have to add something else. You know, like, they might be able to figure out lasers, but to make a CD player you need a marketing executive.
S: Or death ray.
R: Thank you. Yeah, of course. Why didn't i go there first?
(laughter)
R: Yeah, so, this quote comes from a recent article that the BBC produced: "Big Bang and religion mixed in CERN debates". Apparently, there was a conference recently that CERN held—you remember CERN, you know, the guys who, apparently, may have found –
J: Higgs!
R: – the Higgs boson.
S: A boson with Higgs-like properties.
R: A Higgs-like thing.
S: Boson, yeah.
R: A Higgish. I like "Higgish" –
B: "Higgish"?
R: – a little bit.
J: (laughing) "A little bit!"
S: "Higgy"?
B: (singing, inaudible) Higgy again."
R: So, yes. Apparently, i don't know the purpose – I don't know what, who dreamt this up, but what i'm thinking is that someone was concerned that they may have found a particle that many people know as the "God particle", and, so, they're concerned that they're going to be excommunicated or, you know, that people will rebel—religious people will rebel—against science. Basically, we'll have some sort of Dark Ages–esque thing happening, and, so, maybe somebody at CERN thought, "Well, we should have this conference where we talk about how religious people should be OK with the Higgs boson."
B: Mm-hmm.
R: So, those are the good intentions that i'm assuming are behind this conference that has speakers such as this. The quotes in here are pretty fun, and none of them have any amount of intelligence to them. Steve, you're the one who brought this one to my attention here –
S: Yes.
R: I'm interested in what – we've talked a little bit before about things like the Templeton Foundation, which is an organization that gives out a prize – gives out prizes to people who can explore science in a religious context, basically. And i'm a bit opposed to it. I feel like it's muddying the waters. I think we don't need to bring religion into what people are doing at CERN.
S: Mm-hmm.
R: I think those two things are happily separated, but i'm interested in knowing your feelings on this.
S: Oh, absolutely. I mean, i think trying to introduce theology into science is misguided. You know, this conference was specifically about the origin of the universe. So, it's not just about scientific issues in particular. I think the thinking, at least on the part of the theologians who were quoted about this conference, is that, well, you're talking about the origin of the universe. That's a really big question, and religion is about answering the really big questions—not science. Science is narrow and reductionist, and makes stuff, but can't really grapple with the big questions of our origins. And that's exactly incorrect, as you were saying. That's a complete knock to science. I mean, science is, in fact, the only human intellectual endeavor that can answer any empirical question about the origin of the universe.
R: Yeah.
J: So, was the conference, though, the scientists trying to appease religious people? The saying that –
R: Well, you know, apparently, this was – the conference was done on the part of CERN, according to BBC, and that's what i find troubling. I'm totally OK with a conference that religious people host, you know, and the topic might be "How do we –" you know, "How do we consider our theology now that we know X, Y, and Z—now that science has discovered this? What does that mean for our belief system?" And i think that's fine, but, you know, apparently, the theologians who were there seem to think that this was a chance to debate the scientists –
J: Yeah.
E: Yeah.
R: – and, no! Why would you do that? Debate is completely the opposite direction of where you want to go.
S: It also – i mean, the quotes seem to me like a desperate grasp at relevance, trying to make it seem like they're – you know, that theology is still relevant to questions about origins of the universe, when, in fact, science has completely displaced it from that endeavor.
J: So, did it end up with, like, a fistfight? Like, what happened?
(laughter)
E: Science won.
R: I haven't found any evidence of any arrests, so, apparently –
S: There were no fisticuffs?
J: That really must've been awkward as hell, though, right? Like, they're like, sitting there, like, after a whole day, and they're like, "Uh, OK, it's over now."
E: Something tells me they're not going to be doing this again. They're going to learn from this.
S: I don't know.
R: Well, i mean, it's actually not even – like, i wish it had been that exciting. But, instead, it just seems like it was really boring –
E: Yeah.
R: – and nobody came to any conclusions. Because you can't, you know?
S: Yeah.
R: You're just having a discussion of, like, well, you know, "But what don't we know?"
Italian Earthquake Scientists Convicted (14:57)
Whale Makes Human Sounds (21:35)
PANDAS Controversy (26:18)
Reporting Ghost Stories (39:44)
- pnd
Live Q&A (51:06)
- Questions from the CSICon audience
Science or Fiction (55:19)
S: Item number one. A new study finds that astronauts who spent more than one month in microgravity have a 35% increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. Item number two. Scientists have discovered the first feathered dinosaur in the western hemisphere, and also adds another dinosaur group known to have feathers. And item number three. Researchers find that, at the molecular level, evolutionary changes can be highly predictable.
Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:08:11)
Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality.
J: Paul Kurtz!
References
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