SGU Episode 83

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SGU Episode 83
February 21st 2007
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 82                      SGU 84
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
Aquarius is a miscellaneous set of stars all at different distances from us, which have no connection with each other except that they constitute a (meaningless) pattern when seen from a certain (not particularly special) place in the galaxy (here).
Richard Dawkins, _short_description_
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

Introduction

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, February 21^st, 2007, and this is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this week are Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello, everybody.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey, guys.

S: Perry DeAngelis...

P: I miss Bob.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Happy Ash Wednesday, everybody.

S: It is Ash Wednesday.

R: That's right, yeah. I love seeing the people with the smudges on their forehead. I can't help but giggle.

E: I want to walk up to them with a little cloth and kind of just, sir, you have something...

R: Not that I don't have plenty of Catholics I love, but.

P: Just wait a minute. I proudly wore that ash for the first six or seven years of my life. Just slow down there.

S: Bob is on vacation this week, so he is not joining us.

J: Bob took your place in Florida, right, Steve?

S: He did.

P: Yeah. You managed to call in, Steve.

S: Well, you know. What can I say?

P: Some people are just more dedicated.

News Items

Angels Caught on Tape (1:10)

• _article_title_

S: We've got a few news items this week. The first one is an article about, apparently, angels being caught on audio tape.

R: This is great. I bet that they were saying really important things about the future of the world or peace negotiations in the mid-east, because, you know.

J: Advances in technology.

R: That's what an angel should be doing.

J: How to thwart evil.

R: So, come on, Steve, what wisdom did the angels bestow upon us? I'm so excited.

S: It actually sounded like the opening to 2001, A Space Odyssey, when the obelisk makes its first appearance.

R: Oh, well, that's important, too.

S: You have the chorus of human voices singing in the background. That's basically what it sounds like.

P: Wait a minute. You've got to give the guy who wrote the article some credit. At least he had a token skeptic in there.

R: Yeah, but skeptic didn't know anything.

S: It's true. So, the article is written by this guy, Joe Kovacs, who writes for World Net Daily. And he's actually an old high school friend of mine who contacted me for this article that he was working on. He did interview me and quote me rather extensively for the article, so at least there is somewhat of a skeptical position represented. Now this covers the work of a Jim Bramlett who has collected various alleged recordings of angelic voices. This is basically, we've talked in the past about electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP, which is one type of evidence which is offered for the existence of ghosts. This is the first time I've heard of EVP being offered as evidence for angels. Now what these all are, are recordings of people singing in church, and then there's a chorus of voices in the background, and it is alleged that the singing was not being done by people who were present in the church at the time the recording was made, that they were angels joining in, spontaneously joining in the holy singing.

J: But Steve, unlike EVP, which is basically turning up the volume on white noise and picking out little subtleties that you might hear in there that could be mistaken for human voice, I mean, you hear singing in the background. I like to stress that because the next thing I want to say is this was obviously faked.

P: Yeah, well, right, this is pure fruad, I mean, this is ridiculous. You listen to these recordings.

S: When you listen to it, one of them is in Chinese, I can't understand anything that you're saying, I mean, I don't know, it's just Chinese people singing in the background. Two of them are just the chorus of human voices in the background. One of them, the alleged angels actually play the tambourine and a horn and a guitar.

J: So they're jamming.

S: Yeah, they do actually get a little funky there towards the middle.

E: That's called the bridge.

J: It's called Jesus Jazz, Evan, excuse me.

E: Take it to the bridge.

S: What I think is going on, and especially that one, is that people were using some cheap tape recording equipment to record themselves singing in church, and they probably were reusing a tape that already had something recorded on it, and it incompletely erased it. So now their singing is superimposed upon somebody else singing some previous recording of some other people singing pretty cheesily. Now I especially say that because they say they didn't hear the angels singing when they made the recording. They only heard them when they played back the tape.

J: Or Steve, or they faked it, or it was deliberate.

R: Yeah, I was about to say, Steve, before one of the clips, the pastor or preacher or whoever, is talking about a previous instance where angels were singing along with them, and then they start singing, and oh, there are the angels. So that really struck me as kind of contrived.

S: No, I agree.

R: I'm pretty sure that they were faking that one.

S: We're talking about, yeah, we're talking about different specific recordings.

R: Yeah.

S: So I think the one with the people playing the instruments that they didn't notice until back. That was just mistakenly recording over a prior recording and then just interpreting it as as angelic when it was just an artifact of the recording. That's always a huge red flag whenever you don't notice something until later when you're reviewing the tape or looking at the picture.

P: Which is what happens with all ghost photographs and recordings. All of them.

E: Ghost photos, yes.

R: How did they not realize that the angels were playing the Rolling Stones?

S: Well, it's a miracle, yeah.

R: I think they would have noticed that. They're like, is that Paint It, Black?

P: Steve, you think they're explaining away their fraud via incompetence?

S: No, I think that one case probably was just incompetence.

P: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

S: The other case, one of the other cases, now this was at the beginning of the recording, the pastor was explaining how this has sort of cropped up multiple times, the same angelic choir. Now that is like, I compared that to the Jesus in the clouds picture where it crops up thousands of times, all with a different back story, a different context, and this is basically the same thing. The same basic recording is cropping up in multiple places with people claiming that it's angelic. That to me is a red flag for fraud. That's people using this pre-recorded choir, superimposing it upon their singing and claiming it's angelic. The pastor's explanation for it was that, well, God allowed this particular miracle to occur in multiple different places.

R: We should pass this podcast off as an angelic recording. We can all just deny ever having made this podcast.

P: When did you record the show and there it was. All done.

S: Well, which gets to the final point, which is EVP of any stripe is utterly worthless as evidence because there's no way to validate how the sound was placed on the tape. We didn't sing, that wasn't us singing, okay, how do you ever validate or invalidate such a claim?

New footage of JFK in Dallas released (6:57)

• _article_title_

S: Another news item this week, some new footage of JFK just prior to his assassination has surfaced. Now, apparently, there are lots of recordings of JFK just in the time before the assassination, although most people do not think that there's anything really important about that because nothing happened. It was just him sitting in the motorcade, but this one was donated to a JFK museum which actually exists in the book depository where Lee Harvey Oswald was stationed when he shot JFK. The only thing that's really interesting about this one, so this shows it's a pretty close up, very high, pretty good quality, actually, in focus, very clear image of Jacqueline Kennedy and JFK in the motorcade. It's about 60 seconds, I think they said, or 90 seconds before the first shot. The tape is about 40 seconds long. One of the points that conspiracy theorists have made historically is that the hole in JFK's jacket did not line up with the entrance wound in his back. This tape is from a different angle than the Zabruder film. The Zabruder film is the famous footage of the actual assassination.

P: The people that donated this one are George Jeffries and his son-in-law, Wayne Graham.

S: It's interesting that they held onto it for so long, for like 40 years, before giving it up.

J: I think that's strange, isn't it?

S: I think, again, most people figured nothing happened on the tape, so it's not of any historical significance, but actually historians do like this kind of information because you never know what details might crop up. The only detail that people are talking about on this one is the, now this tape clearly shows that JFK's jacket is bunched up behind him. This bunching up would explain why the jacket hole was displaced from the entry wound.

R: And that never occurred to people before, that maybe the jacket was a little bunched?

S: Yeah. Well, when you're starting with the certitude that there was a conspiracy and you just anomaly hunt, any little discrepancy, ooh, the holes don't line up, there's a conspiracy. There must have been another shooter and there was another entry wound or the autopsy was fake.

P: Back and to the left. Back and to the left. Back and to the left.

S: That's enough.

P: Oh, God.

S: I haven't yet seen any conspiracy theorists sounding off on this new footage. I'm sure we'll hear from them if we hear anything interesting.

P: Give them a little time.

S: We'll let you know. I'm sure they'll explain away the bunched up.

J: How long was he shot after that clip was taken?

S: About 60 seconds, 90 seconds.

J: Oh, it was right before it.

S: Yeah. So, I mean, people were taking footage all along the line.

R: So he didn't have any time to take off his jacket and iron it?

S: No, no, probably not.

R: Okay, I just want to clear all that up before we hear the conspiracy theories come back.

Bigfoot Foot Debunked (9:48)

• _article_title_

S: One more quick news item. A couple of weeks ago, about a week ago now, I think, on February 10th in Spotsylvania, a very strange, "ape-like" foot was found in a dumpster. Initially the cops thought that this was the foot of a person and they investigated it as a homicide, but that turned out not to be the case.

P: They went through 27 tons of trash, the homicide detectives.

S: That's good work, boys.

J: It does kind of look like a homeless guy's foot.

E: It does.

P: Nice work, boys.

E: A lot of barnacle on that foot.

P: They were looking for a body. They said, we've got to find the body that came off this foot.

S: Then they x-rayed it and they realized that it was not a human foot. So as soon as they determined it wasn't a human foot, then the homicide investigation was called off. They had a mystery on their hands. This was a large, five-toed, hairless foot. So apparently there was some speculation that perhaps this was some cryptozoological creature, perhaps a Bigfoot.

P: The article says a couple of Bigfoot websites posted the picture. Looky here. Looky here.

S: Well, Perry, you couldn't find any actual Bigfoot information.

P: No, I think that most of them have come down because I look pretty hard. You know, this news has been out for a couple of days now.

S: The reason why they would have taken it down is because the foot has now been positively identified as that of a skinned bear. So apparently when you skin a bear, you start at the feet and the nails, the claws of the bear come off with the skin. So what's left behind doesn't have the claws on it, which is why it could look like an ape-like foot.

P: Right. Because they stay with the skin.

S: Yeah, a non-clawed foot.

P: Apparenlty disposing of animal parts is like a Mr. Mean or something. So nobody cares anymore.

R: Yeah, I'm offended that the homicide investigation was called off once they decided it wasn't homo sapien per se.

S: Well, it wasn't a homo-side, right? It was some other kind of side.

R: Awful speciest if you ask me.

E: But Rebecca, the bear detectives are on it, so don't worry.

J: They called up the bear whisperer, don't worry, he's on it.

S: What, Yogi Bear is going to investigate it?

R: Might I remind you of the great contributions made to our society by bears? Smokey?

P: That's right, that's true. That's true.

R: There's that panda bear.

P: Teddy bears.

R: Ling Ling, hold on, I'll think of some more.

S: Actually you're missing the biggest one, which of course is the country bear jamboree.

R: Oh, I knew there was one.

P: That's true. The Care Bears?

R: The scary mofos. The Care Bears, yeah. See how much good bears bring to our society? All I'm saying is that they should get the exact same treatment as humans.

S: Exactly.

R: Is that too much to ask?

S: Well, one more Bigfoot anomaly bites the dust. This was short-lived, this one.

P: I was hoping for this one, I was. I thought maybe this was a Bigfoot foot in a garbage can. Maybe he was hungry, he went in there.

R: Or maybe like Oscar, he lives in a garbage can.

J: That's why we can't find him.

R: What a way for Bigfoot to be revealed.

E: Where was this dumpster anyway, was it back at McDonald's or something?

P: It's Spotsylvania, the place is infested with Bigfeet.

J: What kind of redneck rolls up to a random garbage can and is like, don't need this no more, this chuck's in a bear's foot.

E: About time I'd be throwing this away.

R: Maybe it was a magical bear foot that granted wishes, and you know, once he's, never mind.

J: Yeah, maybe it's a relic.

R: I was going to try to make a monkey paw.

E: Monkey paw, that's right.

J: Steve, let me ask you a question. Steve, who would cut the foot off a bear and let it go?

R: Well, if you're making a bearskin rug, you don't need a feet.

J: I'm kidding, nobody cut his foot off?

P: Oh my gosh.

J: You hear about the three footed dog goes into a bar, goes up to a bartender and says, I'm looking for the guy that shot my paw.

R: I have a better one. I have a better one. Okay. A bear goes into a bar and he goes up to the bartender and says, I'll have a gin and tonic. And the bartender says, why the big paws? And the bear says, I was born with them.

J: Oh, God. Rebecca, you know what? Rebecca, don't ever tell that joke again.

R: Are you kidding? That joke kills. That joke absolutely kills.

P: This is all premium content.

R: No, you have to leave in my bear one because it's topical.

S: And it is adorable how terrible you told that joke.

R: But no, you have to see it because I make this really funny little motion with my hands. It's really cute. And it kills.

S: Okay, I'll take your word for it.

J: E-mails and questions.

S: Let's go on to your emails and questions.

P: Please, please.

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups

Email #1: Psychics on Oprah (14:43)

Dear Skeptics,
Thanks for reading my email. I'm a long time listener, first time writer. I was at the computer today, and I overheard a commercial on tv for Psychics on Oprah. Being a sane person, I normally wouldn't watch it, but I've grown to love the Talkshow Psychic bashing on your show. So, I was watching the show, and John Edward came on and started discussing his 'conversations' with spirits/energies from the 'other side'. So Oprah chimed in with 'I need to be skeptical for the audience, where is this other side?' So he replies with well you have to think about it this way, 'where is the internet?' and Oprah just goes along with 'Oh now I get it'. Needless to say I immediately wanted to rip my hair out. First of all Oprah is about as skeptical as Jell-O is meat, secondly the internet clearly exists, I can prove with a pen and paper, not to mention it physically exists as a joint effort between a few million computers or as some politicians think is a 'series of tubes'. I'm utterly disgusted that this stuff is nationally televised. I wasn't sure if anyone on the show got a chance to watch it, and I would like to hear what anyone has to say in response to the show. Thanks for your time. Take care.

– Sincerely,
Justin Troupe, Lancaster, PA

• Oprah survey on the paranormal

S: This first one comes from Justin Troup from Lancaster, PA. He writes, "Dear Skeptics, thanks for reading my email. I'm a longtime listener, first time writer. I was at the computer today and I overheard a commercial on TV for psychics on Oprah. Being a sane person, I normally wouldn't watch it, but I've grown to love the talk show psychic bashing on your show. So I was watching the show and John Edward came on and started discussing his conversations with spirits, energies from the other side. So Oprah chimed in with, I need to be skeptical for the audience. Where is this other side? So he replies with, well, you have to think about it this way. Where is the internet? And Oprah just goes along with, oh, now I get it. Needless to say, I immediately wanted to rip my hair out. First of all, Oprah is about as skeptical as jello as meat. Secondly, the internet clearly exists. I can prove with a pen and paper, not to mention it physically exists as a joint effort between a few million computers or as some politicians think it as a series of tubes. I'm utterly disgusted that this stuff is nationally televised. I wasn't sure if anyone on the show got a chance to watch it. And I would like to hear what anyone has to say in response to the show. Thanks for your time. Take care." Now, Rebecca, you have some opinions on this, right?

R: Oh, I have a lot of opinions on this.

J: Jello isn't meat?

R: First, I want to say that jello is a meat byproduct. So I guess that means that Oprah is a skeptic byproduct.

J: I don't think so anymore, Rebecca. I think they actually, they don't use a, they don't use horsetails anymore.

R: I'm pretty sure they do because, well, that's a long story, but I think they do.

S: From the algae now.

R: Anyway, yes, Oprah has gone on this outrageous, just crazy streak, which is really saying something for her talk shows.

S: Yeah, it's been lasting about four or five years.

R: Recently, though, she's just gone, well, okay, I'm trying to describe it without using expletives, which is difficult for me.

J: I mean, she's ego-rific.

R: She's going Tom Cruise.

J: I wouldn't go that far.

R: She had John Edward on. She also had Alison Dubois, the chick who inspired the NBC show Medium. She claims to have solved a bunch of crimes, even though she can't actually present any evidence to back that up. So she had John Edward and Alison Dubois, and then she also had The Secret on. Have you guys heard about this movie?

J: Yeah.

R: The Secret.

E: I'm not telling anyone.

R: Oh my God. They shouldn't have told anybody either. The Secret is that they're all a bunch of frigging lunatics. They're not doing a very good job of keeping that a secret. The Secret is, it's the, what the bleep do we know of this year? Basically, they claim that they've discovered a new law of attraction, which is based on the idea that if you think about something hard enough, you can make it happen. And not just the power of positive thinking or anything like that. They actually literally think that if you wish for, I blogged about this the other day. The example I used was a pony that farts rainbows. If you wish for that with all your heart, you will actually get a pony that farts rainbows.

P: Really?

S: Every little girl's dream.

R: Well, it was my dream. Yeah, they invoke quantum mechanics, which of course is...

P: So do they all live in mansions and drive Ferraris?

R: They do now because a bunch of jackasses are buying their books and movies for it. So I guess they're living proof that it works.

E: Is Oprah going to have a psychic of the month club?

R: Psychic of the day, probably.

J: It's so disappointing to have these idiots resurrected on the Oprah Winfrey show.

R: Well, yeah the people who did The Secret include Dean Radin, everybody's favorite.

S: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about him just last week about the P.E.A.R. research.

R: Yeah, yeah.

P: Right.

S: Dean Radin is desperately trying to give sci-research scientific respectability, but he's failing miserably.

R: Yeah, you just need to Google him. He's got some pretty far out there. Sometimes he'll come across as very sensible and then he just lures you in and then springs the crazy on you. He's got some really interesting stuff out there.

J: Hey, Evan, where's the internet?

P: It's a secret.

E: I can't find it.

E: Oh, Jay, now I get it. It's so clear.

R: Yeah, I love that. That's the skeptical question that Oprah asked on behalf of her audience.

E: Oh, thank goodness she's there to represent the skeptical group.

P: Oh, yeah, really. I don't know what we'd do without you, baby.

R: If you go into her website, you can actually take a survey telling them whether or not you believe in pseudoscience. They call it other things. And it's a frightening percentage. I believe it's like 85% of respondents said that they believe that mediums have the ability to see, speak to, and hear the other side. And something like 95% believe in the paranormal.

S: That's a highly self-selective group of people, so it's not a scientific study.

R: It's really disappointing to me just because she has such a huge audience and they basically follow whatever she says. On my blog, I use James Fry as an example because he's the writer who first she had him come on as part of her book club. Everybody loved him. Everybody bought up his book and put him at the top of the bestsellers list. And then when it turns out his memoirs were all made up, Oprah went on the attack and all of her audience immediately flips around and agrees with her. She has the power to change someone's opinion 180 degrees. And she's using that power to reinforce this.

S: If only she would use her power for good instead of evil.

R: Exactly. She has so much potential.

E: She thinks she is doing good.

S: That's the shame of it.

J: Guys, let me ask you a question. Is Oprah doing it for ratings or is she a true believer?

S: No, she's a believer.

P: She believes.

S: She has stated a number of years ago that she is going to dedicate her life to promoting spirituality.

J: Very disappointing. Someone with her power. She could do so much good and spread a lot of useful information around, but she invites idiots like John Edwards on her show. Amazing.

E: Well, Oprah, we know you're listening, so we invite you on to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe to engage in a conversation.

S: Have us on your show for balance.

J: Evan, who did you write to? The Discovery Channel recently?

E: Yeah, the Biography Channel wants you on their website. They want you to take their psychic or skeptic quiz, and it's 10 questions, BS questions, basically. Do you believe in spirituality and what about the other side and these things? They have three basically canned answers at the end after you're done answering all 10 questions. You're either a true believer and they encourage you for that or you're somewhere in the middle and they say, well, with a little learning, maybe you'll realize things. If you answer skeptically, which you have the option to do, then they say, well, you're convinced, it's good to have people like you out there, but maybe one day you'll be able to see the other side of things.

R: Silly skeptic.

E: It's just so insulting. It's so stupid.

J: Coming from the Biography Channel, that sounds funny to me.

E: It's terrible.

R: What is the biography channel even doing peddling this kind of nonsense? What kind of stretch is that?

S: That's ratings.

R: Who are they doing a biography of? Casper?

S: Well, let's do one more email.

Email #2: Zodiac Insurance (22:46)

Guys, you are such a breath of fresh air. I've been enjoying your current and past podcasts ever since the day I stumbled upon them in iTunes.

Now for my question: I happen to think (as I know you all do) that the zodiac signs are a pile of crap. How then can you explain the article which I link to below? Apparently Allstate did a study which searched for correlations between frequency of collisions and the birthdate of the driver. As it turns out, Aries is the best sign to be, and Virgo is the worst, and the others all fall somewhere in between.

money.aol.com/insurance/auto/canvas3/_a/stars-and-cars-the-best-and-worst/20061108133409990002

Aside from dismissing the study completely, how would you explain such a correlation? It makes no sense to me whatsoever! Is it perhaps a case of self-fulfilling prophecy?

Thanks for a great podcast, and keep up the great work.

– John Di Bartolo, New York City, USA

Article on Astrology Data Mining: "Do Libras Live Longer?"

S: Second email comes from John D. Bartolo from New York City, USA and he writes, "Guys, you are such a breath of fresh air. I've been enjoying your current and past podcasts ever since the day I stumbled upon them in iTunes."

P: Why, thank you, John.

J: Thanks, John.

S: "Now for my question. I happen to think, as I know you all do, that the zodiac signs are a pile of crap."

P: Wait a minute. What are the words in my mouth, young man?

S: "How, then, can you explain the article which I link to below? Apparently, Allstate did a study which searched for correlations between frequency of collisions and the birthdate of the driver. As it turns out, Aries is the best sign to be and Virgo is the worst. And all others fall somewhere in between. Aside from dismissing the study completely, how would you explain such a correlation? It makes no sense to me whatsoever. It is perhaps a case of self-fulfilling prophecy. Thanks for the podcast and keep up the great work."

J: Steve, doesn't somebody have to be the worst and somebody have to be the best? The statistics have to exist.

S: I don't think that John's suggestion that this is self-fulfilling is correct because then everyone would have to know that I'm a Virgo and I'm supposed to be a bad driver. I don't think that that information is widespread. This is what we call data mining. This is the cornerstone of astrological pseudoscience. Is looking at huge sets of data and then mining it for correlations. Then what they do is they make a classic statistical error. They analyse the statistics of the correlation as if they were looking for it ahead of time. In other words, here you might say we looked at thousands or tens of thousands of accidents and we found that Virgos were some percentage more likely to get into accidents. Because of the huge numbers of people that you're looking at, it might have an extremely high statistical significance. We talked about this last week with the P.E.A.R. research, assigning statistical significance because of the use of large numbers. This is a different mistake that the astrologers are making here. What they're failing to do is to consider all possible correlations that could exist. If you look at all possible correlations, what's the chance of any random correlation occurring to this degree? It's actually good. You would actually expect that there would be these correlations. That's the difference between predicting ahead of time Virgos should be bad drivers and then looking to see if they are. If that were true and you found that Virgos were bad drivers to this degree, then that holds some statistical significance. But just mining for any correlation and finding one, you can't do the same kind of statistical analysis. That's a total statistical fallacy. That, again, is the cornerstone of all of astrological research. Usually when astrologers say there's evidence of correlation that astrology is true, this is what they're referring to, this kind of data mining. It's all completely invalid.

J: But Steve, like I was saying before, one of the twelve signs has to be the worst driver statistically, right?

R: Yeah, and you would expect it within a certain degree of, I don't know the words, I didn't study statistics.

S: There'd be a certain amount of variability.

R: That's a good word for it.

S: It would be incredible if they were all exactly the same. That would be a coincidence.

E: If they're making the mistake in this kind of correlation study, imagine what other kind of studies they're doing that they're also misinterpreting the data.

S: This is all of astrological research. There's the so-called Mars effect, which is the same thing, where those who were born on the star at the sign of Mars allegedly had, I think, a greater chance of being professional athletes, or whatever. But who would say ahead of time that that's the correlation that you would see? You couldn't predict that. They're just, again, looking for any correlation, any sign with anything, and you just look at enough variables, you'll find a correlation.

P: It's also, I was reading a little more in this article, other countries have done the exact same study and come up with completely different results. In Australia, it's Gemini's, in Britain, it's Leo's.

E: [inaudible] the constellations down there.

P: It's all stupid. So you wonder if the actuarials aren't going to change based on your zodiac, how much you pay for your insurance. The guy says, why did they do this? Why did all state bother to do this? And they said, we were looking to put together a fun ad campaign that would interest consumers and make people think about what they were doing behind the wheel. I'm a Virgo, so I have to remind myself not to turn around and talk to the kids until we're at a stop. That's their explanation about why they do this. They bothered to do this.

R: I'm a Libra, so I'll stop doing my toenails on the way to work. Thanks, Allstate.

S: But you do bring up an interesting point that if when you do find correlations like this, you can use that as the starting point for later research. You could say, OK, now I have a hypothesis that Virgos are bad drivers. Now let me look at a completely independent set of data and see if it gets duplicated. And of course, when you do that, as you say, let's look at Australian data or whatever, it turns out the correlation doesn't hold up. But astrologers make a yet more subtle statistical mistake. What they do sometimes is they say, OK, let's look at another 10,000 people. And then they pool that with the original data. And the original correlation that they found through data mining gets carried forward in the later analysis. So they include the original data in the later analysis. And you can't do that. You're not allowed to do that either. So sometimes they'll falsely say that the correlation was later validated. But it actually wasn't. Because they cheated, basically, by including the original data. It has to be a completely independent data set. So in this case, of course, it hasn't been validated because astrology is not real.

P: One guy says in the piece, I think that this has as much value as correlating your driving exposure to what baseball team you like.

S: Right.

P: It's the same thing.

S: You could find correlations.

P: Same thing.

S: Jay, you sent me this article. This was a commentary. This is actually ABC News Technology and Science. This is a commentary by Lee Dai called Do Libras Live Longer? And he actually, it's a very good article where I think the Canadian group did a study looking at the same thing, looking at zodiac signs and health issues. And they found that they found correlations all over the place. And they basically did it just to demonstrate how by using data mining, you can pretty much find whatever you want. If you mine enough data, you can look for any correlations you want to see.

R: So wait, did they find out that Libras live longer? Steve, I need to know.

P: Only when they're also vegetarians.

R: Yes.

S: So actually, I'll have the link to this article too. It's actually a good explanation of why data mining is BS and kind of keep an eye out for it. It very frequently crops up in pseudoscience, so it's something worth knowing about.

TAM V Interviews Part V (30:00)

TAM V Interviews Part VThe Amazing Meeting Interviews Part V
with Julia Sweeney
Richard Wiseman
and Scott Dickers - Editor in Chief of The Onion

S: Well, we have the next installment in the Amazing Meeting 5, Tam5 Interviews. This week, we have an interview with Julia Sweeney of Saturday Night Live Fame, and with Richard Wiseman, a psychologist and science popularist, and finally with Scott Dickers, the editor-in-chief of The Onion.

Interview with Julia Sweeney (30:32)

S: Well, we are sitting here with Julia Sweeney.

JS: Sorry, I'm just like rambling on. I don't think it's even starting.

S: Just thinking our listeners would like to know who they're listening to. So this is Julia Sweeney of SNL and Other Fame, and we appreciate you spending some time with us.

JS: Sure.

S: Taking your time away from TAM5. And you are going to be putting on a, you're talking or putting on some kind of show tonight?

JS: Yes, it's so, I should really go work it out before tonight. No, that's how much it's not worked out. It's really, Jill, who's the most amazing musician, Jill Sobule, she sings these songs that are among the best songs ever written, in my opinion, and then I go up and try to tell funny stories in between them, and sometimes it's good, and sometimes it isn't, and sometimes I have something to say and some things I don't.

R: Are they related? Like her lyrics kind of working with what you're saying?

JS: Yeah, like I say, this reminds me of this, and then it's that.

R: And I assume it's like, most of your comedy, and the reason why I love your comedy is that it's all stuff from your own life, and you're just going up and you're telling hilarious stories, is that?

JS: And not always hilarious.

R: Well and sometimes it's heartbreaking, too.

JS: And sometimes just boring. So like, she has this song, Heroes, it's a great song. Why are all our heroes so imperfect? And then she goes through all these people.

S: Again, for our listeners, for some background, why is Julia Sweeney at TAM5? What is your connection with all of this?

JS: I'm not sure if I started at TAM3 or TAM2. I think it was TAM3. So I've been here for all but one. And I am a skeptic, I guess. I didn't know that. I didn't know that after, I didn't know I was on the skeptical path.

R: Here's your label.

JS: I know. And then I started going to lectures at Caltech that Michael Shermer puts on, and that's when I just learned that people could organize themselves under a word like skeptic. And then through people there, I found out about TAM.

R: Awesome.

JS: So that's how I came. And I love it.

R: You are always a highlight. Just hearing the men talk about you with the little heart bubbles. Julia, they adore you.

S: That's true. So I wanted to ask you, what was your life journey towards skepticism? When did you become a skeptic?

JS: Well, I think I just did it on my own. I started looking into religion when I was about 38. I had this, what I thought was a religious experience that was very profound and it was really helpful to me. And I thought God, I mean, it wasn't like a crazy person. I wouldn't have one of those crazy, my God was so amorphous that he was in the realm of reality. It was just a feeling of being at one with the universe and that everything was going to be all right. And there was someone looking over me. I had this very distinct experience. It wasn't a vague feeling. It was a specific feeling. And it was helpful to me in this personal crisis I was in. And so after it was over, I just thought, what was that about? And I just started following it.

S: In my field, we call that a seizure.

JS: That's what I found out. That's right. That's actually right. It was probably a mini seizure of the right temporal lobe.

S: Oh, I got it right.

JS: Induced by enormous stress. That's what I've learned.

R: He's a doctor.

JS: I've had patients who've had profound religious experiences during a seizure. I mean, you can have them without that.

JS: Yeah, and I find that incredibly interesting. And it made me rejoin the Catholic Church within that, made me take a Bible study class, so then I started learning about the Bible, and then I spent a whole year just studying everything about the Bible and just decided that it was incredibly interesting and compelling, but not based on truth. It was just more of historical religious literature that was interesting and had some good advice for living, some, but I couldn't believe in it like a religion. And then I just thought I believed in God, and then I tried to be a Buddhist, and then I spent time in the East, and then I thought that was as filled with as much pseudoscience and craziness as anything else, and then I thought I would be with Deepak Chopra, and then that led me to a quantum mechanics class, and then that was junk, and then I finally just gave up on the whole idea of God, and then I started to go, oh, because in the journey I read Michael Shermer. It's really Michael Shermer. That's the answer to that.

S: So the short answer is he was your...

JS: He is it, because I read How We Believe. And I bought How We Believe. I always remind him of this. I bought How We Believe because the title and the book looked like it was positive about religion.

R: He tricked you.

JS: That's why, and then when they came out with the paperback version, it was an obvious skeptic book, and I don't know if I would have read it.

S: That's interesting. That's interesting.

JS: So I read How We Believe, then I listened to him on the book on tape version, and I was just like, this man is a god to me. I just loved... I had a new god. Michael Shermer. I just thought he was so amazing the way he looked at things. I never had thought of looking at things that way. It was the beginning. Then I was doing... occasionally I would appear on Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher's show, and they asked me to come on to talk about who was the historical Jesus or something, and they said Michael Shermer was going to be on. So I agreed just so I could meet Michael Shermer, and then I went and he said, well, we became fast friends. It was a good experience doing the show, and then he said, I have these lectures. So then I started, and that's when I realized there was this whole community out there.

S: I always like asking those one or two actual people in the entertainment industry who are skeptics what that experience is like, because from looking in from the outside and from those people who I've spoken to on the inside, it certainly seems like you're in the vast minority in terms of people in your profession. Is that your experience?

JS: I think that it's true that people who are in highly competitive and random fields like show business tend to be more religious because they... I just find people in show business, actors, I should say, not writers, not on the business side, but really the artists, actors, they don't really get anything out of critical thinking. They don't need critical thinking for their job. It doesn't behoove them to be good critical thinkers or scientific thinkers. Also, one of the reasons they're good at what they do is because they have a rich fantasy life. They can believe things. So why wouldn't they just believe other things? So I think they tend to be more susceptible to buying into things. I think there's a reason why there's so few, but then on the other hand, I think a lot of people just don't think about it, and I think most people are like my mother even though I love my mother, but she believes what is advantageous to her to believe. I think a lot of the people I know in show business believe what is advantageous to them to believe. I think that's why the Scientologists like that worked for them. That helped them. So they believe that. The whole idea of show business isn't that invested in truth. It's invested in fantasy to begin with. So it just isn't a very fertile ground for skepticism, which is too bad because they're also creating a lot of popular culture and they reinforce this idea in it, and that's disappointing. There's some, like TV actually does a better job with critical thinking than mainstream movies, but that movie that just came out, oh my God, Polar Express, that's Spielberg, isn't it? And Tom Hanks, these are people who just know better. They should know better. And they make a whole movie and the theme of the movie is just believe. Just believe.

S: Right. But the worst was Signs, I thought you said.

JS: Oh yeah, Signs.

S: Terrible at every level.

JS: Terrible. I was so angry after that movie. I left that theater's just livid.

R: We also look up to movie stars and TV stars and people tend to take after their personal lives too. We follow their personal lives and to see the Scientologists, it's just so refreshing to have somebody that is in the public eye that we can look up to as somebody who is a critical thinker.

JS: Oh, well thank you. There's probably more of us than you think. It's just like a lot of people aren't going to be so outspoken about it. And then a lot of writers, I know the entire staff of The Simpsons are all atheists. If you're not, you are endlessly tried until you quit. They are so outspoken. I mean George Meyer and Patton, all those guys are really major skeptics. See, that's why I think television's a better source of skepticism. Like CSI, The Simpsons, South Park. Actually there's something about television that it's more...

R: It's easier to slip things in.

E: Yeah, they embedded the messages into their show, make it so entertaining. People don't even realize they're getting educated at the same time they're being entertained.

R: It's like the pill and the brownie. It's perfect.

S: Have just a couple quick follow-up questions. Have you had any running with Scientologists when you were, first of all when you were in your seeking phase, when you felt you needed some answers, I mean that's typically when Scientologists would sort of prey on people.

JS: You have to have no scientific, not even scientific, you have to be sub-critical thinking to even begin to go into the Scientology. I mean even as a person who wanted to be Catholic and tried to be Buddhist, I wouldn't be a Scientologist. I mean those people, that's insane. I mean like really, I have some standards.

E: When you did your role in Pulp Fiction and you did the scene with John Travolta, were you aware of his Scientology at the time?

JS: No, not really. I didn't really, I think I had heard that rumor and I just didn't, I was with him for a day and it makes me sad to think it's such, it's like a virus, it really is like a virus in Hollywood because it can snag people who want to be like big stars that they've heard talk about it. There's so much money to be made in it. I mean they make them audit all those courses and then they pay money for the courses and then people just, they're really just kind of getting a personal coach barely and then they're paying a lot of money. I would say for all the people that it helps, there's 3,000 that it hurts. So on balance it's detrimental but there are those shining examples but that's true in any religion.

S: Well Julia, this was a great time. Thank you so much for spending some time with us.

JS: Oh thank you so much.

R: [inaudible] on the show.

JS: Yeah.

R: Another time.

JS: Okay, good.

R: Cool, thank you Julia.

Interview with Richard Wiseman (41:01)

S: Well Richard Wiseman has graciously agreed to sit down with us for a few minutes. Richard thanks for taking time out of your TAM meeting to chat with us.

RW: Pleasure.

S: So you haven't spoken, you're speaking later today, what are you going to be talking to us about?

RW: I'm going to be talking on a number of topics, I'm going to be talking about my psychic dog investigation, the world famous psychic dog investigation where I investigated a dog that claimed to be psychic. We didn't, other people claimed on behalf of the dog, yes.

S: So that would be pretty incredible in and of itself, the dog-

RW: If it turned out to be a talking dog but not a psychic one. That was the remarkable part of it. So we're doing that and also a test of financial astrology where we pitted a financial astrologer against an investor, against a five year old child and we gave them each 5,000 pounds to play with, invest on the stock market and we mapped their progress with the child winning hands down.

R: Awesome.

RW: Yeah, that's good.

S: Yeah, we've actually written about that in the past and it's all, the stock market is basically a random system.

RW: Absolutely.

S: You can't predict it any more than you can predict the weather.

RW: But the financial astrologers are making quite a lot of money by saying they can look at the data formation of companies and predict their well-being from that moment on. But it turned out they couldn't.

R: Do they track the company's star charts from when they were born?

RW: That's right. From their data formation.

R: I was joking.

RW: And therefore they tell investors when's a good time and a bad time to invest. So yes, it's big business.

S: You can't make jokes about things like astrology because it's more absurd than your parody of it.

R: Right, right.

RW: You can stop that sentence after the word jokes.

R: That's clever. I saw what you did there. That's cute.

RW: Very clever. And I'll just carry on. We're also talking about the search for the world's funniest joke, which was a huge internet experiment.

R: Did you find it?

RW: We found one. I'm not going to tell it. But I should be talking about the hilarious adventures we had trying to find that joke.

R: Where did you end up finding it? On the couch.

RW: It turned out it was my next door neighbour. He's got it in London. So he'd been holding on to it for a while. And yeah, it was quite bizarre.

R: Interesting.

S: You were chatting with us just a little while ago that you're working on a project with the BBC coming up.

RW: Yeah, indeed. Very exciting. A lot of my work now is about putting science and psychology in particular on television. And so we have just heard that the BBC are going to commission a very large series which looks at psychology in a very sort of natural kind of environment. So picking camera stunts and so on. So I should be going back to the UK and starting to get ready for a very busy filming schedule.

S: So it's going to be sort of the psychology of Candid Camera?

RW: It's that kind of thing, yeah. I mean, maybe not quite as surreal as Candid Camera. I'm a huge fan of Candid Camera. It's fantastic. But the thrust of it is really to get people interested in psychology. Just saying, look, in your everyday lives, you're queuing in a supermarket or whatever, there's a massive amount of psychology going on. What happens when people start to abuse the rules that we all live by by pushing into queues? And what's the most successful way of doing it and so on?

S: So it's almost like taking an anthropologist's view where you're just sort of hiding in the bushes and observing what people are doing, but creating some kind of interesting situation.

RW: Creating. I think the key thing is creating, is that psychologists like to kind of experiment with these things. So we'll be asking actors to do various things and seeing what happens.

S: Well, can't wait for that. That sounds really fascinating. Should be fun. I'm curious, how much of your time do you spend doing this versus?

RW: Doing this? Very little. It's only the second time I've been on the show. Sorry, yeah.

S: Do you have a nine to five or are you spending all of your time doing shows?

RW: Well, I'm in a very fortunate position. The university is very supportive of what it sees as kind of communication work. So my nine to five, some of it is doing proper psychology research, so it's sort of published in academic places. And then the other half is going out and giving talks, doing shows, doing stuff with the TV and getting the word out there. So it's a very fortunate position.

S: So they're happy to accept what you're doing on the side as the public understanding of science and accept that as academic work.

RW: That's right. In fact, there's a huge push at the minute in the UK to get more academics doing this because certainly in the case in the UK, it's like in the US, is that really your job is to teach students and to do research. And if you do do communication stuff, you go and talk to the public, that's something you do in your own time. And so the push now is to make it part of the job. And so it's, for the most part, we're spending taxpayers' money on the research. And so we should be telling them what it is we're doing.

S: Yeah. So I heartily agree with that. And in fact, in the US, those of like me and Michael Shermer would like to have that happen too. But we've been unsuccessful in sort of getting the academic institutions that we work for to sort of accept all this time and effort we've put into promoting the public understanding of science as part of our job. They're like, we're happy you're doing it. It's wonderful. But it doesn't count for anything academically. You still have to do all the other stuff.

RW: I think it needs to be a top down initiative. I mean, the new one from the government in the UK is really for this kind of beacons of public engagement, where it's saying certain universities should really be associated with communication type activities. And that's coming from the government. And I think that's exactly what we need to do to free up academics to tell them this is a key part of what it is they should be about.

S: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it should come from academic institutions as well too. There's still this sort of parochial notion that dealing with these sort of issues, especially when you get to the more fringe issues, which we deal with a lot, is somehow tainted and dirty and real academics and real scientists don't popularize and don't deal with these fringe ideas. So I think that's contributed to this widening gap between science and public understanding. I'm glad that the UK is taking the initiative. I'd really like to see universities recognize this is a key part of their role and they really have to value it.

RW: Well, and particularly the public, the people paying for this stuff. And so they should understand what it is that scientists are doing and indeed be given a say in what it is that scientists do. And that's a very alien concept to most academics, that they need to say to the people that are giving them their hard-earned cash, this is what we do. Do you think that's worthwhile? But I think that's exactly the level of engagement that needs to happen.

S: But that can only really work in a situation where you have a generally scientifically literate public.

RW: Absolutely. I mean, even when you have a scientifically literate public, there may be some unpleasant surprises in there. The public would say, look, you guys are doing this and we don't want you to do anymore. We don't find that interesting and worthwhile. We'd rather you did this.

S: Well, I do think that one thing that definitely would help, I think a lot of scientists also forget that science as an institution survives on the goodwill of the public. That erodes when they don't understand what we're doing.

RW: That's right. Or see scientists as kind of inhuman, who don't care about the world. They're going to feel very uneasy about what it is the scientists are doing. So I think the human face of science, which is a key part of the communication initiative, is absolutely crucial. They're saying scientists are human too, and they care, and they're fun, and they're interesting and all of that. They're not the inhuman robots in white coats that people often think they are.

S: The Hollywood mad scientists or geek scientists, basically they only have two models. They're either the mad scientists or the geek scientists, and that's it. That's all Hollywood really knows.

RW: That's right. The fact that there's a lot more going on there, and the more we can get scientists as real people out there in the popular culture, I think the better it will be.

S: I also see that as a role of skepticism, scientific skepticism, is where sort of science going into this breach of dealing with the dirty topics of the paranormal and pseudoscience and fringe science and things that the public is obsessed and fascinated with these things and the media loves it and scientists don't want to touch it. So there's this huge gap, and to me that's my vision of the skeptical movement, is stepping into that gap.

RW: I think that's absolutely right. Most scientists don't deal with these fringe areas at all. They don't understand them. It makes no impact on their academic career. So I think there's a huge hole, which is that the public know about telepathy and mediums and so on, and the science people are going, look, it just doesn't exist, but we don't do anything. We don't do any research at all. We just made up our minds about it. I think that's an enormously bad advert for science. So I think if it was publicly driven, you would see a lot more research going in that sort of direction, because this is the stuff that interests people.

S: And that's why we're here at the Amazing Meeting 5, right? This is all about science and the media skepticism and the media, which is what we're all engaged in.

RW: And that's what the talk is going to be about. I mean, I'm talking about the way in which the media represents paranormal claims, but also how we can get skepticism on the media. I mean, the search for the world's funniest joke was still about experimental methods. It's still about how you would look at the psychology of humor. We had one and a half million people take part in that experiment, and hopefully they will think more positively of science and scientists because of that experience.

E: Very good way to reach out to people, definitely.

RW: So that's what it's about. It's about reaching out to people who wouldn't normally get involved in any science activity. And maybe their only experience of it was at school where they're told, actually, you're not very good at science. And they have a very negative view emotionally of what it is to be involved in an experiment.

S: Well, Richard, it was wonderful talking with you today.

RW: Pleasure.

R: Thank you so much, Richard.

J: Thank you Richard.

Interview with Scott Dickers (50:14)

S: So sitting with us now is Scott Dickers, who is the editor-in-chief of The Onion, which, in my personal opinion, is the most hilarious and funniest satirical newsletter on the internet or perhaps anywhere.

SD: Steve, you are too kind.

R: And how did you describe it earlier, Steve, right before we were recording? Was that effing hilarious?

S: There was a couple of expletives in there.

R: Which our listeners aren't used to hearing you with a potty mouth.

SD: America's finest news source is what we call it.

S: Right.

R: And modest.

S: Very true in many, many ways. For those listeners who may not know, The Onion is an online daily newsletter or newspaper.

R: Well, there's a print edition still, too.

S: There is?

SD: It started as a print edition.

S: Actually, I was not aware of that.

SD: In 1988.

E: Wow.

SD: And it went online in 1996.

S: I was only familiar with the online version. But it's completely satirical.

SD: That's right.

S: Is that accurate?

SD: Yeah.

S: But in being satirical, you're obviously shining light on a lot of the foibles and absurd aspects of life in general and people and politics and society.

SD: Yeah. We were just trying to be funny in the early years.

S: Is that right?

SD: I made the mistake of hiring writers who were really, really smart. And so they get bored just doing jokes. After a while, jokes feel pretty empty and you have to start doing satire. You have to make jokes that have some kind of deeper meaning or some sort of message. And obviously you don't want to get messagey, but you do this for 18 years like we've been doing and your jokes have to have a little more meat in them to really satisfy.

S: So you started out just wanting to be funny and then just sort of evolved into this sort of political satire.

SD: Yeah. We endorsed Bobby the Brain Heenan for president in 1988.

E: That's a wrestler of wrestling fame, folks, for those who don't know.

SD: That's the wrestler. And it was decided that because of his intelligence, he would be the most qualified wrestler. We named the San Diego Chicken Man of the Year in 1990. Those sorts of things. It's not exactly brilliant satire, but we were having fun.

R: You cut out for a while and then you recently came back to The Onion. What made you decide? What was that all about?

SD: I left to make a couple of movies and I was doing that on my own. Just as a matter of personal pride, I wasn't using my connection with The Onion to try to get things to happen like I wasn't making The Onion Presents whatever movie. And it was hard. It was hard to make movies without that. So when The Onion asked me back about four years later, they were at a point where they were making movie deals and they were doing TV. So it was an opportunity to do what I had wanted to do anyway, but with some help. But I kind of like starting from scratch. I like being the underdog. When The Onion got really popular in the late 90s, because I sort of felt like, well, what's the challenge now? It's not like we're trying to build anything it's like we had arrived, you know. We got the exhausted portrait in The New Yorker we've been on CNN. I mean, it was starting to feel like no fun anymore it wasn't a challenge. We had achieved every possible goal we could have ever possibly imagined. Stephen Hawking wrote us a fan letter it's like, all right, I'm quitting.

R: The article about Harry Potter that ended up being taken seriously by, I don't know, thousands of fundies. Can you tell us a little bit? Was that on your watch?

SD: That was not on my watch. No.

R: Okay.

SD: I don't know that much about it. I mean, I obviously was in touch with all of them. It was kind of fun actually to be just a reader of The Onion for that time, because I would just see it in the newsstand and I would maybe read the headlines, I wouldn't read all the stories. It was great.

R: Well, it's like a monster that you made, you know. It must be odd to see and suddenly that this thing that you started as a joke is now being taken seriously.

SD: I think everybody who has a 15-year-old child understands what that's like.

S: Also, it's like after 9-11, we were talking to others about how that affected the media, at least briefly. If I recall, The Onion was sort of one of the first outlets that actually produced a humorous content after 9-11, about 9-11.

SD: Right.

S: And if I recall, the headline was something like, the 18 9-11 hijackers shocked to find themselves in hell. But I think it sort of highlighted for me how effective humor could be, because it seems to me that one of the ways in which it is very effective is that it's completely disarming. You know, it's like you almost, you can't be offended because it's all funny. If it's funny enough, you could be, you could say anything if it's funny enough.

SD: That's true. This is a pretty miraculous medium humor. I've thought a lot about this, and I don't know if this is going to get too technical or too boring, but I've thought a lot about like what laughter actually is. It's a response to some kind of external stimuli that the brain can't process, and so you sort of have this like involuntary reaction of laughing, which is very similar to crying, because there you're having an uncontrollable involuntary response to stimuli that you can't really process. It sort of overloads your circuits in one way or another. The two are very close. Like if you start laughing too hard, you start crying, and if you start crying too hard, you start laughing. We've often found that some of the saddest things make the funniest articles. When we were doing our book, Our Dumb Century, which was a collection of front pages from The Onion from the beginning of the 1900s to the year 2000, it was when America was having the most trouble that we were finding the most meaty material for satire. The 30s were such a great meaty decade to make fun of. So many tragedies like the Titanic, or the Hindenburg, or Vietnam, or even like the shuttle disaster in 86. Those were like the thing. When there wasn't really anything happening when it was all happiness, like in the late 50s, it was like, what are we right about? There's nothing going on. That comes back to another theoretical thing about humor that I thought about that I think it started as a Mel Brooks quote, and that is that it's a formula, comedy equals tragedy plus time. If you fall on a manhole cover, that's hilarious. If I cut my finger, that's a tragedy. So at The Onion, we always try to experiment with reducing the amount of time or distance between the tragedy and the comedy to see, just sort of play with that boundary and see what happened. That book was a really interesting experiment because when we did the Titanic, nobody's offended. People who suffered from that have long since been dead. Then you get into the 60s and then it's Vietnam, it's like a little more sketchy, we're making fun of that stuff. Then the shuttle disaster is 86, 9-11 was like the real test. It's like, okay, two weeks after 9-11, we're going to do this because we really at that point had been hardened to this idea and kind of knew what the boundaries were. We knew that humor actually was a really important part of the healing process. It wasn't just a juvenile response to something. It actually could be, because it purged us. We felt better after making jokes about certain things that were really painful or whatever.

S: Yeah, it was. It was a way of, as you say, purging some of the real anger and hatred you had towards the people who did this and sort of fantasizing humorously about them suffering in hell was actually a cathartic experience.

SD: Almost as funny as the story we did about Mother Teresa in a wacky afterlife mix-up being sent to hell.

R: Well, have you heard Christopher Hitchens' book, The Missionary Position?

SD: I read that book.

R: Yeah.

SD: That's why we wrote that story.

R: Nice. Okay. Well from my point of view, I read things like that and I think, oh, I hope they meant it. You know, it's really nice to finally meet you and hear from you that, yes, you meant it.

SD: We meant that one.

R: That's awesome.

SD: She's a horrible, horrible person.

R: She is a terrible woman.

SD: I think that book is to be believed. I assume it is.

R: You know, I read up on it and I followed up on a few of his sources and it definitely seems to be a good job.

S: Give the listeners the nugget of what the story is about.

SD: She's only interested in proselytizing to these poor people and she gets millions and millions of dollars from really big donors and could use them to feed people or build hospitals but just doesn't do anything. All she's interested in is converting kids to Christianity right before they die.

R: Yeah, there's no accountability. Mother Teresa.

S: Didn't she die?

R: Yea, I think she's dead.

S: I was wondering why you were talking about her in the present tense.

R: Her hospitals were, and I believe her hospitals are still out there and being funded, and they're pits. And speaking of the poor and starving, the onion even tackles big social issues in such an hilarious way. One that sticks out for me for some reason is the point counter points, which I'm not sure if you guys do those anymore. The first point was, oh my god, I'm so hungry by some rich Californian girl or something. And then the counter point was, oh my god, I'm so hungry by poor, starving orphan in Africa. Things like that. It's just so heartbreakingly hilarious.

SD: Our next book that we're finishing up now is called Our Dumb World. It's the Onions Atlas, 73rd edition. And we cover every nation on earth in great detail with maps and information about the countries. There was so much material there, because there's so much horror. We didn't have a clue how bad most everyone else in the world has it until we started researching this book. So if you like that kind of humor, there's a lot more coming. A lot of starving Africans.

R: Great.

S: So it's just unusual statistics about these countries.

SD: It's a political atlas.

S: Yeah, a political atlas. How many people are dying of starvation in this country, things like that.

SD: But jokes about that.

S: Yeah.

SD: Right.

S: Well, Scott, it was really a pleasure talking with you. Thanks for giving us some time.

SD: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

E: Thank you, Scott.

R: Enjoy the rest of the conference.

S: Take care.

SD: You too.

Science or Fiction (1:00:13)

Question #1: New study finds that older adults make better eyewitnesses in that they have a more accurate assessment of the accuracy of their own memories.

Question #2: New research shows how bacteria can be used to protect buildings from earthquakes.

Question #3: New study demonstrates for the first time that some birds are able to anticipate future needs and plan accordingly.

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items worth backs. Two are genuine and one is fictitious. And then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. And you all can play along.

P: Wow. This sounds interesting. This is the first time I'm playing this.

S: Before we get started, I have some follow-up from last week.

J: Oh, yeah. Clean up the mess, Steve. Come on.

E: Oh, yeah. Follow-up from last week. Here we go.

S: There was some contention over the fact that one of the items was that chimpanzees have been found to be crafting and using stone tools, which was fiction because they've only been shown to be using stone tools, not crafting them. And, Rebecca, you took exception to that.

R: Yes.

S: Now, I actually emailed the author of that article, and they have yet to respond to my email.

P: Nice.

R: Therefore there shall eternally be an asterisk next to that science fiction.

S: No, no, no.

E: They're too busy grooming each other.

S: But I did read the original article published in Science Magazine, and it is very clear what the chimps were doing. They were selecting stones and using them to crush nuts. The use of the stone tools caused them to become encrusted with some of the material from the nuts, and there was some incidental flaking from the stones.

P: Wait a minute. Are you telling me they were crushing nuts and then they got encrusted with stuff?

E: And then there was incidental flaking.

R: Incidental flaking on the nuts?

E: On the nuts or off the nuts?

J:I don't even know why we're talking about it.

R: Was the flaking on the nuts?

P: Was the material sticky before it got hardened? I'm just curious as to the exact nature of the...

S: But there was no crafting or modifying of these stone tools whatsoever.

J: Okay.

S: Now, a couple of the secondary sources that we're reporting on...

P: There's Steve. Unshaken. Unflappable. Straight right through. There was some... There's evidence.

S: Rather sloppily use the words tool making interchangeably with tool using, but that was erroneous, essentially sloppy reporting.

R: So when the monkeys were using their tools...

P: To crush their nuts.

R: To crush the nuts.

S: Chimps are apes, not monkeys. Come on.

E: Yeah, come on.

S: Do you really want me to get 30 emails correcting us on that?

E: What is this, the Los Angeles Zoo?

S: So clearly, clearly I was totally correct and Rebecca, you were wrong and you have to acquiesce on this point.

R: Asterisk. I'll continue to contest the point.

S: Let's go on to this week's science fiction. You all ready?

J: Yeah.

R: Yes.

E: Yeah, four minutes ago I wasn't.

S: Number one. Number one. A new study finds that older adults make better eyewitnesses in that they have a more accurate assessment of the accuracy of their own memories.

P: Good Lord.

S: Item number two. New research shows how bacteria can be used to protect buildings from earthquakes. And item number three. A new study demonstrates for the first time that some birds are able to anticipate future needs and plan accordingly.

P: Oh, please.

E: Evan, go first.

Evan's Response

E: I don't know. I don't like the birds planning accordingly. But I think that...

R: Nobody does. It's scary.

E: I would like to think the first one is older adults better eyewitnesses is fiction. I'll go with that one. I think that's fiction that older adults make better eyewitnesses.

S: Okay, Perry.

Perry's Response

P: Yeah, the first one, I don't like it because it's a big long convoluted mess. It's just the wrong memory. That sounds like nonsense. Bacteria protecting? Sure. Bacteria can do anything. And birds planning ahead? Absolutely. Every time they see a monkey, they plan on getting their asses kicked. That's basically accurate. So the first one's nonsense.

S: Okay, Jay.

Jay's Response

J: I don't remember reading anything about the bacteria. But I'm going to go with the adults having better memory. You said, Steve, that adults actually are better witnesses because they can more accurately remember things.

S: No. They can more accurately assess the accuracy of their own memories.

P: Older adults.

J: I'm going to go with that one as the fake.

S: Okay, Rebecca.

Rebecca's Response

R: I agree with the peanut gallery. I think that adults are not as good eyewitnesses.

S: Okay.

Steve Explains Item #2

S: So you all agree that new research shows how bacteria can be used to protect buildings from earthquakes.

J: Yeah.

E: Oh, that's...

J: Of course. Of course.

E: Please.

S: And that one is science.

P: I told you. Bacteria can do everything.

E: That's what we told you, Steve.

S: Yeah. Bacteria are pretty amazing things. So they use bacteria basically to convert sandy or loose soil into solidified rock. So you can use it to stabilize the base basically below a building so that it'll be more resistant to falling down in the case of an earthquake. This is...

P: That's how New York City works. That place is crawling with bacteria.

S: This is research being done at UC Davis. The article says microbes can literally convert loose sandy soil into rock.

E: Very cool.

P: Amazing. Amazing.

J: That is cool.

S: Amazing.

Steve Explains Item #3

S: You all also agree that a new study demonstrates for the first time that some birds are able to anticipate future needs and plan accordingly.

J: I read that.

R: Hitchcock doesn't lie.

S: Now, prior to this research, this has only been demonstrated in humans and chimps. But now, birds enter the very exclusive club of animals that can actually look into the future and plan for future needs. This study was done with the Western scrub jay, a very intelligent bird.

P: The scrub jay.

S: Yeah. Scrub jay.

P: Sounds like a real winner.

R: Just like our jay.

S: I was actually looking for the Florida scrub jay when I was down in Florida, but I didn't see any.

J: I heard of it.

S: They're very rare. This is the Western scrub jay.

R: Scrub.

P: They have scrub jays.

S: What they did was they... Each morning, they would fill two chambers with either one with food and one without food or they would fill them with different kinds of food. And then the night before, they would give the birds the opportunity to hoard food. And they would hoard food based upon what was going to happen the next day. So they made decisions they had really no reason to make otherwise based upon their anticipation of what their needs were going to be the following day.

P: Right.

S: So it was a pretty elegant experiment. Pretty clearly shows that they were changing their behavior based upon what they anticipated was going to happen. It's the first time that evidence has come to light.

P: They didn't realize the monkeys were sneaking and stealing their food at night.

E: With their tools.

P: Right.

S: I had to include that the balance out the chimp piece from last week with the stone tools. So what that means, of course, that you guys are all right this week.

E: Do I get extra credit for being correct first?

S: No.

Steve Explains Item #2

S: New study finds that older adults make better eye witnesses in that they have a more accurate assessment of the accuracy of their own memories. That's false. That is fiction. In fact, the opposite is true. They not only have worse memories, they have a higher confidence in their mistaken testimony. They actually have a higher level of confidence, but a lower level of accuracy, so they make terrible witnesses.

E: Back in 04, we used to wear an onion on our belt. And we'd call nikels bees or Nick Nichols.

J: What the hell?

E: Simpson.

R: You done?

S: So, you guys all got that correct this week.

P: Of course.

S: Makes up for last week where you all got it wrong.

P: That's true.

E: Except Bob, huh?

S: That's true. Except for Bob who's not here.

E: Sorry Bob. Just a chance.

Skeptical Puzzle (1:08:24)

Last Week's Puzzle

Identify the number sequence:

0.0
2.6
23.4
25.2
3.1
26.7
97.8
28.3

Answer: Axial Tilt of the planets of the solar system
Winner: Mike from the boards


This Week's Puzzle

Because I do not hope to know
This mystery at this late hour
Because I do not think

Because I shall not know
Once thought to fuel this power
Was alcohol, which I cannot drink

Because I can not know
Why it doesnt happen to tree or flower
Perhaps this bad habit is the link

Because I refuse to know
My impulsive human reaction seem dour
And whatever bits remain, boy, it sure does stink


What am I describing?

S: Yes, I need your answer for last week's puzzle.

E: The answer to last week's puzzle is, in fact, is the axial tilt in degrees of the eight planets of our solar system, starting with Mercury.

P: Some people got that, right?

E: Yep. Yep. Beginning with Mercury. And actually, Mike from the message boards, we all know Mike, actually got that quite quickly. So, I was pretty impressed.

J: Good work, Mike.

P: In fact, somebody mentioned it was only two minutes after Steve posted it to Mike.

E: And there were people complaining, give us a chance, blah, blah, blah.

S: Well they actually brought up a good point that Mike might be just pulling the puzzle off of the notes and not actually listening to the whole show. So maybe I won't post the puzzle right after I post the episode.

R: That's sneaky. Oh, no, Steve. Oh, Steve, you need to post a fake puzzle.

S: Oh, well, I can't do it now.

R: No, you can do it now, because by the time he hears this, it'll be too late. He'll have already answered the fake puzzle that you put on the notes page. And everybody that's listening now is laughing because they know that Mike answered the fake puzzle.

E: Without listening.

R: It is brilliant.

P: You can wait until two minutes after you put it up, he'll answer, and then one minute later you could say wrong.

R: Yeah. That's perfect.

S: That's good.

R: It's decided.

S: Well, Evan, what is the real puzzle for this week?

E: Okay. This week's puzzle. It's a poem I came up with, so I hope you will all enjoy this.

P: Of course.

J: I'm sure you do.

E: Because I do not hope to know this mystery at this late hour, because I do not think. Because I shall not know once thought to fuel this power was alcohol, which I cannot drink. Because I cannot know why it doesn't happen to tree or flower. Perhaps this bad habit is the link. Because I refuse to know, my impulsive human reaction seems dour. And whatever bits remain, boy, it sure does stink. What on God's earth am I possibly describing with this poem? So enjoy, everyone.

R: Have you been hitting the peyote?

E: No, but those mushrooms growing out in the backyard were interesting.

S: Evan, you missed your opportunity to rap a song. You still owe us a rap.

E: Look, I know I owe everyone a rap for some reason. I don't know how I got suckered into that.

J: It's my fault.

E: A rap will be coming later this year. So for those of you on the edge of your seats for that, stay tuned. It is coming in a few podcasts.

R: Can't wait.

J: Steve, I have a general announcement. Mike from the Boards has absolutely stunned us by creating a fan site for us. You guys saw it, right?

S: Yeah, it's great.

J: It's sgufans.net. It's basically sanctioned by us. We all agree to it. We love it. We think it's great. I'd also like to mention that Iron Man did some of the graphical help on the site. I think he basically just did the top banner for him.

P: It's very flattering. And for those of you who don't regularly read the forums, some of the people on there are very talented. So if they're on display over at this other site, you should go take a look at them.

E: What's the domain again?

J: sgufans.net.

P: That's great. And also, don't forget iTunes, everybody. If you want to put up a review for us, if you enjoy the show, please do.

S: Oh, and Jay, what about the... We're also adding a link so that you can dig our episodes.

J: Oh, that's right. I added... Last week, I put in a link on the homepage to dig so you could go and dig our site. Basically, just for those of you who don't know what dig is, it's basically just a way to add your single vote to what content you like on the web. I've been also messing around with adding it in on the archive so you can vote on our whatever particular episodes that you like as well. So look for that in the future. I'm still working out the bugs.

S: Some people have been doing that on their own, but we're going to try to facilitate that. If we get enough people voting for an episode of the Skeptics Guide on dig, then that can actually get ranked pretty highly, and that could drive a lot of traffic to our website and to the show. So that's a great way to help spread the word.

P: There you go, everybody. There's all kinds of ways to be involved.

S: That's right.

P: We appreciate everything that you do.

S: What we do is we're up to about 13,500 now, our listeners, up from about 10,000 at the beginning of the year. So our audience is growing steadily, and we greatly appreciate it. Keep those emails coming. We always appreciate them, too. We need constructive feedback, news items, wacky stuff. Send it all to us. The more stuff we get, the more stuff we have to pull from to put together our shows.

Quote of the Week (1:13:22)

'Aquarius is a miscellaneous set of stars all at different distances from us, which have no connection with each other except that they constitute a (meaningless) pattern when seen from a certain (not particularly special) place in the galaxy (here).'Richard Dawkins

S: Bob usually sends us a quote each week, but Bob is not here, so we don't have a quote.

R: All right. I'll give you a quote.

S: All right.

R: Actually, it's an astrology quote, which I thought was appropriate. "Aquarius is a miscellaneous set of stars, all at different distances from us, which have no connection with each other except that they constitute a meaningless pattern when seen from a certain, not particularly special place in the galaxy, here." That's Richard Dawkins.

S: Richard Dawkins, right. There's just so many ways that you could dis astrology because it's just so silly.

R: Nobody does it like Dawkins.

P: Astrology is as vacuous as the space it worships.

E: Perry D'Angeles.

S: Perry, though, it's quantum mechanics, though, Perry. Quantum mechanics makes it all real. Well, that's our show for this week. Thanks, everyone, for joining me.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you.

P: Thank you. Thank you, Doctor.

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation. For more information on this and other episodes, 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