SGU Episode 920

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SGU Episode 920
February 25th 2023
Ghost hunting devices & gadgets you can use to track paranormal activity 🤦‍♂️
SGU 919                      SGU 921
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
Of the many other so-called "disciplines" taught here, Divination is perhaps the most feeble, especially in its nonsensical practice of Astrology. Do not confuse Astronomy and Astrology: one is concerned with mysteries stellar and lunar, the other is mere lunacy.
Professor Satyavati Shah from the game Hogwarts Legacy
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Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, February 22^nd, 2023, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody!

S: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening everyone.

S: How is everyone this unseasonably warm February?

E: Yeah, New England-wise.

J: Yeah, I mean, it's remarkable that how much I am outside, but with a t-shirt on, I'm wearing t-shirts outside in the dead of winter.

E: It makes no sense.

B: I will say I've lived in the northeast my whole life. It is the most unseasonably warm winter ever that I have experienced. We had one in my area, we had one reason why I had a shovel, and it was only a few inches. That's it. That's it.

C: I can't even.

B: It's crazy.

C: I walked towards it and it was like 85 degrees. I was like melting on the way to work today.

E: Cara, in a typical winter up here, the ground will freeze at some point. It will get to the point where you couldn't put a shovel into the dirt in the ground in the winter.

C: That's nuts.

E: But it is never, it is not really even, we've had a couple cold days, but it's not even close to the ground freezing at any point at all in this winter. It's so unusual.

S: Yeah, the question now is are we going to make it to spring or is it going to have the revenge?

E: A couple weeks, less than a month right now to spring.

S: Yeah, but the last couple of years we had a mild winter in a long cold spring.

E: Yeah, here's my concern. We have no snow. There's no runoff, and that runoff feeds the water table. And unless we're going to have a very wet spring, we're going to have a drought problem is coming summer if we don't make it up in the form of rain this coming spring.

B: But it has rained a lot the past couple of months and where we are, where I am. It has rained.

E: But I think we are way on, I mean, there's no way, how can we, how can we're supposed to have the melt, the snow melt, it doesn't exist. So all that water we do not currently have. And so we're going to have a problem if we don't get a lot of rain in the coming weeks and a couple months.

S: And it's also going to exacerbate the deer problem that we're having.

C: You guys have a deer problem?

S: Well, I mean, the country has a deer problem, I don't know if you're paying attention, but they are really a significant menace. I've read an article about it.

B: Menace?

S: Oh, yeah, yeah. It's not just that there's a lot of deer around. So there's really two big ways that there are menace. One is they're voracious. They just, because there's so many of them and they eat the usual food that they eat. But then food gets low because they're overpopulated. So they start to expand their diet. They're essentially eating all of the underbrush in the woods, which is devastating the ecosystem for smaller animals and birds that nest or rely upon to the underbrush. And also they eat small trees before they have a chance to become big trees. So they're really are being, they're just devastating to the environment. The second big way is that there are menace to car drivers.

C: Yeah, there's a number one most dangerous, I think animal in the US. That cause the most deaths.

B: Yeah, I've had like four in my day.

E: Uuuh, I've never hit one thank goodness and come close a couple times, but no, I've never actually had a deer collision.

S: I hit one as a passenger. I wasn't driving, my wife was driving. And it was perfect, was twilight, go around a corner. They're deer running across the road.

E: Yeah, what can you do?

J: I saw a deer jump over a car.

S: Yeah.

E: Oh, yeah.

J: It was remarkable.

S: And this is part of the reason why mountain lions are expanding eastward in the United States because they're following the food. And some people are starting to say, you know what, we should just let them and they'll eat some of the deer. You know, it's not going to be-

E: But then do we get a mountain lion problem?

C: Also, what do we mean let them what?

S: Well, in other words, we don't try to keep them from spreading east.

C: How the hell are we supposed to do that?

S: Well, we could hunt them.

C: We should not be hunting or culling mountain lions whose populations are absolutely dwindling and like so inbred at this point, we should absolutely let them eat the deer. We should also be hunting deer.

S: Yeah, that's the other thing is that we should-

C: We have to hunt deer.

S: We need to expand the hunting season.

C: And we need to change the laws so that we can sell venison in this country. It's like ludicrous that venison is not, you can't buy it in the stores.

S: Yeah, well, most of it is if it's not consumed by the hunter, it's donated to food shelters and stuff because you can't do that, but you can't. Yeah, though, it's a bit state by state.

C: But like why? Why can't we eat deer in this country the same way we eat beef?

S: Yeah, they do need to-

C: It makes no sense.

S: Yeah, you're right. Right, they should expand the market for venison.

C: Yeah.

S: In fact, they, one of the articles I was reading said in previous decades there was a huge venison market and it significantly reduced the deer population, right?

C: Of course, and there's huge market in that. In other countries, it just makes no sense. And deer is delicious. Like venison is legit good.

S: I've never had it.

C: Really?

S: Yeah.

E: Isn't it gamey?

C: I mean, gamey compared to what?

B: It doesn't have to be.

C: I mean, all meat is gamey.

E: I get that, but-

S: Some is more gamey than others.

C: I guess. I don't find it. I don't find venison overly gamey and there's ways, you got it, like know how to cook it.

E: Can we CRISPR that out of these?

S: Yeah, right. And also, there's a third way in which deer are a menace is they're increasing the deer tick population and Lyme disease.

C: Right. And that's specifically like a Northeastern thing, right?

S: Yeah, but that's going to spread probably. The issue with, well, certainly the deer injure, damaged property and kill more people than the mountain lions would. So that's a good tradeoff. Somebody occasionally being eaten by a mountain lion would be undesirable, but a lot lower in number.

C: That's so rare.

S: It's very rare. I think the number was like 12 in the last century in the United States.

C: And deer kill 200 people a year from auto-collisions, 200 people a year. And I've read injure like tens of thousands in auto-collisions. Yeah. They're the deadliest animal in the US.

B: I hit one at like 50 miles an hour on the highway and did like $3,000 with a damaged car.

S: So we have to teach people in the east, east of the Mississippi, how to live safely with mountain lions roaming in the wilderness.

C: Well, you should say east and north because we've had panthers in Florida for a long time.

S: Yeah, that's right. It's basically the west and Florida, but now it's going to be the rest of the east. And there's a few simple rules like the mountain lions are like black bears in that if you're noisy, they probably will just leave you alone.

C: But also, I'm sorry. Like mountain lions are, yes, you're right. That is true, but mountain lions are nothing like black bears in that they are ghost cats that you won't see them.

S: Yeah.

C: They don't want to be seen. They don't want to be anywhere near people.

S: They're ambush hunters. They might, they do, they may, they may, they might ambush on you. If you see a mountain lion, you're probably okay. It's the one you don't see that you have to worry about. If you're being noisy, don't worry. If you're being noisy, they're not going to come near you.

C: If they have deer, they don't want people.

S: That's true.

C: They're not a good snack to them.

S: That's true. Deer are much better target for them. But you know, there's always, there's enough of them. There's going to be occasional, rare events. But and also bear spray is effective against mountain lions. So it's, that's a, that's a more effective defense than, than having a gun.

C: Right.

S: I think because for most people, it's easier to use probably and you just have to sort of spray it in the general direction and you're probably be okay. Whereas we talked about this with the bear thing. If you, unless you're a trained hunter with a proper rifle, if you shoot a grizzly bear, you're probably just going to piss them off.

C: Right.

S: Right. And your chance of getting killed may even go up. But bear spray is effective. So it might be like, if you go hiking in certain regions, once they become populated by mountain lions, bring your bear spray. But you probably should do anyway.

E: You should, yeah, you probably should.

C: But I'm telling you, I've lived amongst mountain lions for a long time. The best defense is to not have an offense. They are not interested in you and you will never cross paths with them. I promise you. You will not see them. Don't go looking for them. If you see a den, if you find a den of mountain lion kittens, do not go anywhere near it.

S: Right.

C: That is not your role, you know what I mean?

B: Can't I just play with them for a few minutes?

S: But they're so cute, Cara.

C: They are incredibly cute. They are like, like look up mountain lions.

J: But they're not cute enough to get your face ripped off.

C: Nope. No, they are not.

J: Run away.

E: You still have to fight that initial urge, though.

S: They go for the back of the neck. My entire experience with mountain lions is limited to Red Dead Redemption 2, which has of actually a very, very accurate nature simulator, basically in it. And basically, if the mountain lion sees you before you see it, you're dead. That's it. You are dead.

C: But again, that's like all, like, scare tactic. My experience with mountain lions is pretty extensive. And I know a lot of people who work in like the wildlife service in California. And there are people whose job it is to track mountain lions who have never seen a mountain lion.

B: Wow.

C: Because they, it's like-

B: Are they bad at their job?

C: No, they're tracking them on these collars. And you know, you don't see them. They don't want to be seen. It's very, very rare. And when you do see mountain lions, it's usually a sign that the mountain lion is very sick.

E: Sick.

C: Yeah. Or that there's something going on within that population. A wild mountain lion has no interest in getting anywhere near humans.

E: They're smart that way.

C: They're very smart. They're literally called ghost cats.

S: Yeah.

C: That's their nickname.

S: Yeah. Because they hide. All right.

Quickie with Steve (10:06)

• Serial Dependence Bias 

S: Going to do a Quickie before we go on to the news items. This is really going to be very, very quick. Did you guys heard of the serial dependence bias?

C: Not like breakfast cereal? (laughter) Which kind of cereal?

B: Reese's Puffs, man.

S: S-E-R-I-A-L. Serial as in sequential.

E: Oh, books like novels, little those, what?

C: In a row, like a row.

S: In a row, yeah.

E: Oh, that kind, like a serial number.

S: Yeah. So, very quickly, it's a, I love different types of cognitive biases. It basically means that your perception and your evaluation is biased by what you recently saw. Yeah? So there's a quick experiment recently that, that demonstrated this. And it was done in Japan. So they showed people of like a half a second image of a jumble of Japanese coins. And then they said, how many coins were there in that picture? And what was their total value? And people would then estimate to a number of coins and their total value. And then they would do it. They would do it again. They do it, a couple of hundred times. And they, they asked them every other time to estimate their value. So what they were testing was what would have more of an effect on their later guess? Is it what they saw or what they said? Does that make sense? Because each time they're seeing a picture and then they're seeing another picture. But only half the time are they asked to, to estimate the number of coins and the total value. What do you think would have had the bigger effect?

J: What they said for sure.

S: Yeah, what they said. The most recent guess had a greater influence on subsequent estimates than the most recent image. So even if you made a guess two images ago had more of an influence on the one image that you saw, but didn't guess.

C: Do you think that's simply, I mean, I get that it's this like, recency bias. But do you think that it's also simply because they're encoding more? They're literally encoding it when they say it out loud.

S: Yeah. I mean, we don't know, the study didn't look at why it was just saying.

C: But it's like, that's how you study.

S: Yeah.

C: You know, talk about it out loud, write it down on note cards. If you just read it, it's going to fall out of your brain. You have to like, you have to then transduce it into like another sense. And you have this multi-modal learning.

S: Right. So this study had one question. Is it what you see or is it what you think about what you see? Because even like if you overestimated the previous one, then you were biased by your overestimation, not the actual image that you saw. Does that make sense? So it's interesting. Again, just one of the, there's an infographic I found when I was researching this for this piece, 188 documented cognitive biases were in this one infographics just to show you, these are all the ones that we use that are in the literature, 188 different ones. So we'll be talking about more in the future, but this is a fun one. All right. Let's go on to some full news items.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]

The 4-Day Work Week (13:09)

• The 4-Day Work Week and Health 

Infants vs AI (24:55)

• Infants Outperform AI in “Commonsense Psychology” 

Black Holes and Dark Energy (34:47)

• Black holes may be the source of mysterious dark energy that makes up most of the universe 

Paranormal Gadgets (45:35)

• Ghost Hunting: 5 Devices & Gadgets You Can Use to Track Paranormal Activity 

Superalloys (1:01:21)

• 3D Printing Superalloys 

Who's That Noisy? (1:14:49)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Treadle ("TREH-duhl") sewing machine

New Noisy (1:19:12)

[hissing with low and high guttural animal honking/humming]

J: ... But anyway, what is making that noise? If you think you know, or if you heard something cool, email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org. ...

Announcements (1:20:38)

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Science or Fiction (1:22:02)

Theme: Life Item #1: The Atlas Blue butterfly has the most chromosomes of any eukaryotic diploid creature, at between 448 and 452. Item #2: About two-thirds of all people who have ever been over 65 years of age are alive today. Item #3: Despite claims of living fossils, there is no evidence for any extant species existing for more than about 3 million years.

Answer	Item
Fiction	⅔ all people to live >65 years are alive today
Science	No extant species >3 M.y.o.
Science	Atlas Blue butterfly

Host	Result
Steve	sweep

Rogue	Guess
Bob	No extant species >3 M.y.o.
Cara	No extant species >3 M.y.o.
Evan	No extant species >3 M.y.o.
Jay	No extant species >3 M.y.o.

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

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:36:42)

Of the many other so-called "disciplines" taught here, Divination is perhaps the most feeble, especially in its nonsensical practice of Astrology. Do not confuse Astronomy and Astrology: one is concerned with mysteries stellar and lunar, the other is mere lunacy.  – Professor Satyavati Shah (late 19th century), from the video game Hogwarts Legacy. She was a British or Irish professor of Astronomy at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Signoff

S: —and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

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Today I Learned

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