SGU Episode 58

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SGU Episode 58
August 30th 2006
Stalinhitler.jpg
(brief caption for the episode icon)

SGU 57                      SGU 59

Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella

B: Bob Novella

R: Rebecca Watson

J: Jay Novella

E: Evan Bernstein

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Show Notes
Forum Discussion


Introduction

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, August 30th, 2006. This is your host, Stephen Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. With me here tonight, are Evan Bernstein...

E: Hi everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello, everyone.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Namaste.

S: ...and Perry DeAngelis.

P: Right.

S: How are you all doing tonight?

P: Good.

J: It's pretty good Steve.

P: Yourself?

S: Very good, very good. We have coming up later in the show, we have an interview with Dr. Kimball Atwood, who is very active and evaluated in the claims of natura pathia or naturopathy. So we'll be talking about that for a while. But first let's go to some news items.

News Items

Pope to accept ID? (1:00)

  • www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1859760,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

S: There are a couple of Vatican-related news items in the news this past week. The first one is growing speculation that the new Pope is about to accept intelligent design. I'm sure you guys have read about this.

J: Holy Jesus.

P: That would be just beyond terrible if that happened.

S: Yeah.

P: I mean, really.

J: What are the ramifications of that?

S: Well, it's hard to say exactly what the media, obviously, within the scientific community, they would be none. But within, there's over a billion Catholics in the world. It's just one of the major religions from what I hear. And from what I understand, the Pope is a little influential within the Catholic religion.

R: All I have to say is that it's a good thing that the Pope is infallible. Because wait a minute, didn't the last Pope say that evolution was a fact?

P: It's true. Last guy said it was more than a theory.

R: Shouldn't all their heads just explode at this point?

J: Like the [inaudible] guy?

R: Seriously, it's just pathetic. I'm sorry, it's completely pathetic that we even have to worry.

J: Well, is he actually saying it's science? Or is he saying that the church endorses it because it goes with his concept of god?

S: Well, he's not saying anything yet. He's holding some kind of a conference on this issue. And the people who have been following this say that the signs are there. That since this new Pope has come on, that the church has made a lot of comments that point to them moving in this direction. One prominent anti-evolutionist Catholic scientist, Dominic Tassat, told the US National Catholic reporter that they're having a meeting to give a broader extension to the debate as if there was a real debate. Even if the Pope knows where he wants to go and I believe he does, it will take some time. So if he's given any indication of where he wants to go, it's a way from evolution.

J: How mind-numbing is it that these church officials are going to argue about intelligent design and evolution? That makes no sense to me.

P: Yeah, how I'm elapsed Catholic. I haven't been to church in about 20 years. How can I remove myself further?

S: You can get excommunicated.

P: Yeah, that's it.

S: They cast you into the outer darkness.

R: I'm only hoping that the majority of Catholics-

S: Will shrug it off?

R: Yeah, that they're Catholics in name, but when it comes to their everyday life, they're actually thinking for themselves and so on.

S: You can always hope.

P: It's just the PR will be a disaster, though.

S: I think it'll be worse for them than it will be for science to be honest with you. Here's one statement by the Pope in his inaugural sermon he made the following statement. "We are not the accidental product without meaning of evolution." So that might give some ideas to where he's leaning.

R: I don't find it very shocking. Maybe I'm just a horrible cynic.

E: It's interesting that he's going to embrace the theory of intelligent design. Why doesn't he just call it creationism? What is the Pope afraid of? Why does he have to cloak himself with the term intelligent design?

S: It has the patina of science, and Catholics do try to portray themselves as being scholarly. Of the Christian denominations, they do.

P: There's the whole tragedy of it. I did always consider Catholics a little more erudite than many other Christians sects. Certainly, those more fundamental, but this puts a knife in it.

R: With the exception of the Pope, though, especially the current one.

P: I'll wait for the edict, the bull, but-

R: The bull?

E: The paper bull.

P: Certainly it's going to be a paper bull.

E: There's a bunch of paper bull.

Hitler and Stalin possessed by the Devil (4:53)

S: The other Pope/Catholic item in the news this week. The Pope Benedict XVI, he has an official caster out of demons. And he made the following, this is Father Amorth. And Father Amorth made the following statement on Vatican radio recently. He said: "Of course, the devil exists, and he can not only possess a single person, but also groups and entire populations. I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about what Hitler and Stalin did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the devil." There you go.

E: So therefore, they're not guilty by reason of possession. They were actually innocent people that were not acting of their own accord.

R: Here's the thing. Imagine though that your job title is caster out of demons. And it is currently 2006. Just put yourself in his shoes for just one second and just think, what would you do to keep your job? You've got to be on the verge. You know that you are a remnant of the middle ages. You have to come up with something. So what are you going to do? Go for the Nazi demon thing.

J: What does the Pope do? Say, here's someone my caster out of demons.

R: I think the Pope is sitting there thinking who is that dude? And his advisor leans over, sir, that's your caster out of demons. And the caster out of demons is sitting there. I'm like, oh my god, I am totally going to lose my job. So you know, he calls up the radio station. Hey, let me tell you about demons.

S: Apparently, apparently Pope Pius XII, who was Pope when Hitler was in charge, tried a long-distance exorcism on Hitler.

E: Wow.

P: How did that work out.

S: Didn't work. Didn't take.

J: Imagine that guy filling out an application for a credit card. Occupation. Caster out of demons. No, for real. I'm not kidding. I do that.

S: So the logical fallacy in that statement, which I feel compelled to point out, is of course the major un-stated premise, which is that people who are not possessed are not capable of committing these horrendous atrocities, which is a very dangerous thing to believe. I mean, we have to understand human nature and why Hitler was what he was, and why it was possible for him to capture a nation for a nation such as Germany during World War II to do the things that they did. To say, just to fluff it all off as demonic possession is to miss the point, to miss the lesson of history and to understand human nature. It's very, very destructive, actually, as much as we'd like to make fun of it, because it is kind of silly.

P: Are you saying it's juvenile, asinine and thoughtless?

S: Yeah.

P: Okay.

R: It's basically the flip side of what happens when someone credits god for doing things that humans are doing. EMTs come upon a terrible accident and save someone's life, and it's declared a miracle that they survived, but it's not a miracle.

S: Thank god. No, thank the guy who saved your life and the science that gave them the tools to do it.

P: And god has never blamed for the accident.

R: That's Satan.

S: That's Satan, yeah.

Pluto no longer a planet (8:12)

  • www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14489259/

S: Quick follow up from last week, when we recorded the show last week, the United International Astronomers did not yet make their pronouncement on the definition of a planet. They did the next day, and sadly Pluto is no longer a planet. So our solar system is now officially down to eight planets, and at present three, what are going to be called, dwarf planets. Ceres and Pluto are dwarf planets. Charon will remain just a satellite of Pluto.

R: And Xena is the dwarf planet, too.

S: And what, yeah, the body which is designated, although not officially named, Xena.

R: Oh shut up.

S: It's not official yet.

R: Everybody knows what I'm talking about when I say Xena. You don't need to say the body formally known as Xena.

E: Warrior Princess.

P: Yeah, was this your warrior princess? Is that the-

E: Of course. From '93 to '97.

S: And it was unofficially designated as Xena.

P: Alas poor Pluto, we hardly knew ye.

S: This is certain symmetry to the eighth, though, but we now have four inner planets, four outer planets so even numbers.

R: Why do you need to be so divisive?

P: It was really just kind of a little ball of ice.

E: Can't we say that scientists have corrected a mistake for so long and is now correctly classifying Pluto instead of saying Pluto is demoted or Pluto is kicked out of the club or sort of this negative connotation.

J: I don't think we should assign any emotional value to it. You have to just go with the science.

R: Oh, you have to you assign emotional value to it. I mean, come on.

J: What, are you going to cry over the fact that they're reclassified Pluto?

R: Yeah, I am. I already did.

S: There is something very romantic about astronomy. I have to say. And the planets and the galaxies and that's I do think that there is a certain, I don't know, human emotion attached to it.

P: But I say F that ball of ice and rock. Good riddance to it.

S: Two weeks ago, weren't you saying bully for Pluto? Now you say F it.

P: I wouldn't have mind it.

S: So tickle.

P: But it's done. It's out.

E: Yeah, the science wasn't out two weeks ago.

P: I've moved on.

R: Perry's affections are fickle.

P: I have new planets now.

E: Like X25.

R: Stop calling Pluto. God. It's a needy.

S: I do have to say that I am wrapping my mind around the notion that we only have eight planets much quicker than I thought I would. It's been a much smoother transition than I could.

R: They say that it takes about half as long as you were together to get over being apart.

P: So that does beg the question, though, Steve, are you going to explain your daughter? Your daughter's. Honey, I've been wrong all these years.

S: I already did.

R: Problem solved.

S: Was very accepting of the fact that Pluto was now a dwarf planet.

J: Well, I'll tell you, this whole thing turns into one of those facts that people will be quizzed on like five years on the street. So is Pluto one of the planets? Everyone will think yes, and no one will know what is in anyway.

R: Well, no, yeah, it'll be like, well, I don't know. They did that thing.

J: I don't think anyone knows about that thing except us.

P: A few people. Few.

R: That's optimistic. You know we have like 4,000 listeners, right?

S: And growing.

P: All 4,000 of our listeners, no.

S: That's right.

P: Thank you.

R: I'm pretty sure 2,000 are my mother, but still. She totally knows.

Madonna and magic water (11:35)

S: Madonna has managed to voice herself into the news in the last couple of weeks.

P: I'm shocked. Shocked.

S: She and her husband, Guy Richie, have been harassing the British government. You might say petitioning, but I think that harassing is probably a better term, that they have the solution to nuclear waste.

R: That's right.

S: Madonna believes that nuclear waste is the biggest problem in the world today. The planet's not going to be here in 50 years because it's going to be buried in nuclear waste.

R: Science says that the planet's not going to be here in 50 years.

S: But fortunately, she has the solution. She has the magic water. That will, that magically makes all of the radioactivity go away.

R: Can she even hear herself?

E: You had me at magic. I'm convinced.

P: Magic coffee enemas?

S: It's a magical cabala fluid.

J: Does this fluid come out of her husband? What is this?

S: Madonna and her husband are both members of cabala, which is a mystical, Judaic cult, really.

J: You're so mean with the way you say that, Steve.

S: Yeah I know.

J: Such a [inaudible].

P: They're not even good enough for Scientology?

E: Let's see. How about this, Jay? I'll change it. They're second rate numerologists.

R: That's much nicer.

S: So they, whatever, part of their mysticism, I don't know. I think they blessed it or whatever. They have this magical fluid, and they claim that they were able to remove the radioactivity from some lake in Russia.

P: I'd like to test that. We can bring in a barrel of radioactive material into their home.

R: We can put Madonna and Guy Richie in with a, yeah.

S: Perry, they cannot waste their precious time and resources testing this. They have a world to save from nuclear waste. I mean, come on.

R: She could be like the radioactive material girl.

P: It would take nothing. She could squat over a barrel.

J: Remember when she was like new and hot in the 80s, and we were all young or partially unborn if you were Rebecca, but remember when she was cool and all that? And now she's creating like the cure for radioactive material?

R: Well, here's the thing. The thing with Madonna though, she's still every now and again, she's still kind of cool. She crucifies herself on stage and pisses off millions of people, and it's hysterical. But then she goes-

S: She does this. I love the, one official said, I love this quote: "It was like a crank call for scientific mechanisms and principles were just bullocks basically."

R: Can you see them all standing around the lab saying, it's Madonna, she says she has water. What do I do?

P: What happened, her water broke? What? Come on. By the way, I just want to say for the record, I never thought the woman was cool. [inaudible] and folk musics.

R: Oh come on. She was cool.

P: I'm sorry. I'm just telling you.

J: Do I need to start classifying Madonna on my hate list along with Tom Cruise. I mean, I'm starting to wonder here. I have to expand my list.

P: Because they're freaks.

E: Well, at least Madonna's bothering the Britons. Now, I love the Britons. There are brothers and arms, but at least they're not bothering us.

R: And it's, yeah, it's funny to watch. I mean, come on, because nobody takes her seriously. We can all just sit back and laugh. And in an article, she said, I can write the greatest songs and make the most fabulous films and be a fashion icon in conquer the world. But if there isn't a world to conquer, what's the point? And I'm like, I'm like, whoa.

J: Can you refuse any more ego into that sentence?

R: The most fabulous films? Like Desperately Seeking Susan?

J: Okay, she's officially on my list. That's it. Her and Tom Cruise are my, the two people I want to shoot when they want to.

S: We have to call that the Tom Cruise list, because he tops it. The Madonna is now on the Tom Cruise list of crazy celebrities. Right below Mel Gibson.

P: The list is legion.

Primates were prey for raptors (15:40)

S: All right. We have one more very important scientific follow.

P: Very important.

S: Very important.

E: Okay, pay attention.

P: Why down out there?

S: New research reveals that early men may have been feasted upon by ancient raptors.

J: Oh god.

S: That's a bird Perry.

R: Oh no.

S: So this new study-

E: Time traveling raptors?

S: To continue this very important discussion we've been carrying through this podcast.

R: Birds versus monkeys.

S: This is W. Scott McGraw, who's a researcher, looked at the bones, the remains of food from 12-

E: Look at the bones! Sorry.

S: 1200 African Crowned eagle nests, and of the 1200 remains, 669, that's more than half, belonged to monkeys.

J: There you go, Perry. You've been wrong yet again.

P: I did actually read this bit of fiction. We all know that birds and monkeys never existed at the same time in the history of the planet. So this is all hokum. These raptors never existed with the great apes. End of story.

J: But Perry, please, for the scientific record, because we do have people out there that believe half the stuff we say, it did happen and you're wrong.

S: Perry, this is your opportunity to grasp intellectual integrity, Perry, and admit that you were wrong.

R: Seriously, did the researchers look into the possibility that the birds played dirty. Maybe-

S: Were scavengers?

R: Yeah.

J: Maybe they dressed up like female monkeys.

R: Or maybe they bribed some other monkeys.

S: They characterize the birds as ambush hunters. They snatch them-

R: Aha! See, I told you.

S: -out of the tree.

R: Playing dirty.

P: Let's just say, let's go on on a limb, no pun intended, and let's say that these monkeys and birds were around at the same time. Okay, fine. What did they do? They found a couple of bones, right? Bird bones and monkey bones. How do they know that the monkeys didn't kill a bird?

S: No, these were found in bird nests, in the nests of-

P: So what? How do you know the monkeys didn't go in there, snap the birds' nests and live in the nests?

R: And also the monkeys had scrawled, oh god, help me in berry juice.

S: Perry, that's actually a very good skeptical question.

P: Of course it is.

S: And the answer is that the primate skulls had talon holes in them.

P: Once again, these are all assumptions. You don't know that there wasn't a king of the monkeys, taken over the other monkeys and using their heads as bowling balls.

R: Yeah, maybe the monkeys killed the birds and used their talons as weapons against each other.

P: And that's another possibility. The possibilities are endless. Occam's razor cut off the ridiculous before you accept the insane.

R: You know what, god put those bones there to test us.

E: Could the monkeys have been dead and the birds just picked them up after they died?

P: Birds are well known scavengers.

S: Not these birds though. Now this professor has re-examined the punctures in the skull of the {{w|Taung Child}]. This is an early, one of the first Australopithecine fossils found. It was thought that the two holes in the skull of this fossil, early human, were probably from a large predatory cat. But he believes that they were from an ancient crowned hawk eagle.

P: Monkeys can bit birds.

S: Alright, let's go on to emails.

Questions and E-mails ()

Archeological Conspiracies ()

I got into a discussion with my brother on the subject of strange archaeological finds. He made the statement that there are so many of these stories around that some 'must be true'. At this point my critical thinking alarm went off and I told him that making a blanket statement like that was to be close minded to the possibility that these things have plausible explanations or are outright hoaxes. He seems to subscribe to the 'evil scientists concealing the truth' theory.

Is there any good solid evidence of any of these stories being true? (i.e. modern artifacts found in solid rock, etc. ).

Thanks,

Chris Hampton
USA, Atlanta, GA

Gullible article on 'out of place artifacts' www.atlantisrising.com/issue5/ar5topten.html

Deployed Skeptic ()

To all
Love the show, not much in the way of entertainment in Afghanistan so there is lots of time to think and listen to the 50 podcasts I stuck on my ipod. I think I am the first ever listener of your show during a mid-air refuel of a C-17. Add that one to your stats. :) Keep up the good work and I look forward to future episodes (if I can ever download them).
Captain M Forman
Special Operations

Abiogenesis pseudoscience? ()

Steve,

On the last podcast you all were discussing the hypothesis for an abiogenic origin for petroleum. After a really good overview (from Perry, was it?) Rebecca mentioned that pseudoscience can invade any field, and that was the general consensus. I would quibble that abiogenic-originated petroleum is not a psedoscience.

It may very well be wrong, but what is pseudoscience about that? It's based on the very real evidence that some of the molecules in petroleum can be created without a biological component to the process. As one of you stated, it looks like the available and observable evidence would not support the amount of petroleum we see, and that largely the hypothesis doesn't fit as well as the hypothesis (hence now probably theory) for the biological origin of petroleum.

I suppose that conspiracy theories have surrounded it, so it trips the 'pseudoscience trigger' in you, but a perfectly reasonable hypothesis that does not require anything magical that happens to be disproven, is not pseudoscience. In fact, it's the best kind of science, it's a hypothesis that is testable (or at least disprovable through observation).

Matt Dick
Chicago

Interview with Kimball Atwood, MD ()

  • Kimball C. Atwood IV, MD is an anesthesiologist and clinical assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, and an Associate Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. He has been active in exposing the pseudoscientific practices and philosophies of naturopathy. He is also an advisor to Naturowatch, a website with scientific information about naturopathy (www.naturowatch.org/). He is also the Chairman of the Committee on the Quality of Medical Practice of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

    Articles by Dr. Atwood
    Naturopathy: A Critical Appraisal: www.medscape.com/viewarticle/465994
    On Considering Alternative Medicine: www.massmed.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Government_Affairs29&CONTENTID=8695&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm

Science or Fiction ()

Question #1: Oxford physicists propose resurrecting the ether to explain current mysteries about the structure of the cosmos Question #2: Scientists have bred a strain of permanently happy mice to use in depression research. Question #3: Researchers at the University of Montreal claim to have found the 'God spot' - the single location in the human brain responsible for religious belief.

Skeptical Puzzle ()

Last week's Puzzle:

A man, a chemist, a pastor by trade
In search of a cure he thought he had made

For the prevention and cure of scurvy, he wrote
His newest discovery he had hoped to gloat

The public's belief in this product was fast
Dermatitis and rheumatism would be things of the past.

As time passed on, and the ills still remained
The product itself would garnish new fame

Still the pharmacies sold it, it would become a tradition
People bought it by the hundreds, the thousands, and millions

For that man long ago we must give our thanks,
While he tinkered with elements, currents, and plants

And though he did not rid the world of rickets or piles
To billions of people, we attribute their smiles.


Who was he and what was his discovery?

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society. For information on this and other podcasts, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.

References


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