SGU Episode 1016
|
This episode needs: proofreading, links, 'Today I Learned' list, categories, segment redirects. Please help out by contributing! |
How to Contribute |
| SGU Episode 1016 |
|---|
| December 28th 2024 |
 |
"Celebrating curiosity and skepticism in 2024—join us on this exciting journey!" |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
C: Cara Santa Maria |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Quote of the Week |
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” |
― T.S. Eliot |
| Links |
| Download Podcast |
| Show Notes |
| SGU Forum |
Intro
Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, December 18th, 2024, 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: Evan Bernstein...
E: Good evening, everyone.
S: ...and Ian Kalanen. Ian, welcome back on the show, man.
IC: Oh, hey. Sorry. I didn't hear you. I'm flying my drones back and forth between New Jersey and Connecticut.
S: Are you?
E: Well, I mean, you know, anyone with half a brain, anyone with half a brain knows it's you, Ian. Certainly this audience.
IC: They love it. The people love it in New Jersey, I see.
S: There's a bunch of fun stuff happening right at like the last end of the year.
E: Oh, my gosh.
S: We're not really doing new news items, but we have to say the drone thing is just so silly.
IC: I know.
S: It's basically like people are wondering what these mysterious drones are in the sky. They're freaking drones. What is mysterious about it?
E: And other things that are misidentified as drones.
S: Yeah. What do you think these drones are? I think they're drones.
IC: But they're drones at night. People can't possibly fly.
S: And there's a lot of them. Where would people get so many drones?
E: They always come out at night.
IC: Definitely not Amazon.
S: Unless it's the day.
E: I got mine. I did order one on Cyber Monday. Yes. Yes. I did a search for the best deal on a drone. And I got one like at 85% off.
B: Whoa. Nice.
E: Yeah.
S: Have you got it yet?
E: I have. Yes.
S: Have you flown it yet?
E: No, I haven't. I have to wait until the holidays are over.
IC: Is there a brand associated with it that you're willing to say?
E: Well, I don't have the box right in front of me. I would have to go get it. But I believe the designation is called X-29. I don't know if that means anything.
IC: Okay. No.
S: No.
E: No. Okay. I'll look it up. You guys keep droning on. You knew that awful pun was coming. Is the year over yet? So thanks, Cara. Thought bubble.
IC: It's called the ultimate beginners drone, apparently. nSo that's good.
S: That's smart.
IC: Good for you.
E: Hey, nice. Thank you, Ian.
S: You're the ultimate beginner.
E: Hey, I am a neophyte when it comes to drones.
S: So how has everyone been for 2024? How did the year go for you guys?
C: What a year.
E: Survived? Is that the way to describe it?
C: I think so, yeah.
S: This is our year end show. This is our 20th year end show that we've done.
E: That's right.
S: Yeah.
C: Wow.
S: Number 20.
E: Oh, boy.
S: We look back at the SGEU and science and skepticism and things and stuff over the last year. Yeah, this has been an interesting year.
J: There's a lot of subtext, I think, happening here.
S: Not necessarily in a good way.
E: Well mixed bags, certainly, like most years. But I mean, certainly there were a lot of milestones in 2024 for for SGU in a lot of different ways.
S: Yeah, we passed our one thousandth episode in 2024. We had two great live events this year. Everything we did was all the live events were really good. But we had two sort of outstanding ones. We had the Eclipse and we had our thousandth episode.
B: Yeah, they were standouts.
S: Yeah. They were the largest audiences.
C: [inaudible] this year.
IC: Unreal.
C: This was so long ago.
E: I know. It does seem like a long time ago. But yeah, it was this year. Oh boy. The Eclipse in Dallas was just-
S: That was awesome.
E: I was especially happy for everyone there. You fellas who for who's this for whom this was their first total solar eclipse.
S: It was so unbelievable. And it was all the more dramatic. It was like a TV show because like we had clue is cloud cover, right?
C: Right, we didn't know if it would happen.
S: But really like the last minute the clouds part the sky is clear and then the Eclipse happens and it was just incredible.
B: You look up and like there's Soran's eye in the sky.
E: It is.
B: Holy crap. So surreal.
S: Lidless. Wreathed in flame. And we saw the prominence, you know, at the little-
IC: The red little.
E: On the edge.
B: They were naked eye too. I was like, what is that? And then I looked I looked closely like, oh my God. It was so dramatic.
IC: We had the binoculars and whoever set up the one on the stand.
S: Yeah.
IC: Very cool.
S: Yeah. Yeah. And then we had a great audience for the thousandth episode. It was very nice. People were so, you know, so supportive and everything, you know, being on this ride with us was awesome.
C: Yeah.
S: So it was a good year.
E: Yeah.
IC: Yeah.
B: And a bad year.
IC: Well, we'll keep it at that. Don't talk about anything else.
S: Good stuff happened.
C: And show over.
IC: The last year we have electricity, but.
S: Well, Ian, apparently with by the 2030s, we're going to have commercial fusion power.
IC: Oh. Five to ten years.
E: Game over.
S: You didn't hear that?
C: It's five to ten years.
S: Yeah. Five to ten years. Now, this is like this again just came out. We would definitely be talking about this as a news item if it wasn't just a review show. But a company, Commonwealth Fusion System, says we're going to have a commercial attached to the grid producing electricity fusion reactor in the 2030s. Okay, that's pretty ambitious. They haven't done it yet. I mean, they haven't, they don't have a proof of principle even. They haven't, they're just going to build, go straight to a commercial reactor.
J: Who said that, Steve?
S: The company. What do you mean who said that?
B: Yeah. So this is the Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which remember this is like a split off of MIT, right?
S: Yeah.
B: Or are they partnered with MIT?
S: They're collaborating with MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
B: So this is the fusion plan idea, you know, their specific approach. This is the one that I'm most hopeful for because first we got MIT is in the loop, which of course, you know, raises it as much as they can. I mean, it's MIT. MIT is awesome. But the other part is that they started with this super powerful, small, really, you know, it's like a 20 Tesla magnetic field. It's like far the most powerful in the world, far more powerful than the ITER, Takamak reactor, what they're using. And that's what's going to make it much smaller and cheaper. And I don't know. Fusion is fusion and they say it's going to be in the 2030s and it could be in the 2050s. I don't know. But if I had to put money down, if I had to put money down, I would put it on these guys. And the other thing I like is that they're saying they're not going to create a test facility to proof of concept for the next test facility that will then usher in the final working facility. No, they're saying this is it. This is the one that's going to be able to connect to the grid and they're going to build it and they say they can run it in the 2030s. You know, I don't think it's going to be less than a decade necessarily. But hey, if they they're confident, it gives me a little bit more hope.
S: I don't know. I'm extremely skeptical. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm 100% wrong about this. It's just odd. This has been the Lucy's football for Charlie Brown for the last 50, 60 years. It's always been 20 years away. You know what I mean? And they haven't done it yet. The thing is they have not produced plasma. They haven't produced net energy. They're just saying this is our design. It's going to work and we'll overcome these hurdles. Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's.
B: Yeah, we've we've heard that before.
S: Yeah, we've heard that before. There's a lot of ifs. And if they do it, it's literally the science and technology news of the century.
E: Sure.
S: If they freaking do it.
B: Oh, yeah. Huge.
E: I mean, talk about planet saving technology.
S: Oh, yeah. I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but damn.
IC: But this is a private enterprise, right? Like, how are they getting funding?
S: They're getting.
E: Yeah, it has.
IC: Yeah, I mean, you know, billions of dollars. Yeah, they need like trillions of dollars.
S: Billions, this is billions.
B: Billions, yeah.
IC: I mean, like, okay, yeah, because I'm like, oh, yeah. Do they need trillions of dollars to actually accomplish it? You know what I mean? Who's to say, but-
B: I mean-
S: No.
B: -maybe not, not now. But if you could, the farther you go in the past, it would probably, you know, potentially reach that that amount.
IC: Yeah, but I mean...
B: Their claim is that they'll be able to demonstrate net fusion energy, which of course is nebulous. I'm trying to look it up and it just means that more energy is going to be produced and it consumes. Well, what does that mean? Because we know the National Ignition Facility, right? They were using inertial confinement. They did it. They had, they really hit ignition and all that, all that good stuff, but still, they produce more energy than the lasers that hit that, that nugget, that hall room. But the thing is, the energy that they created to do it was like hundreds of times more than than it was produced. So it's like, yeah, it's net energy only in this confined area. But if you step back a few paces, no, so what so what do they mean by net fusion energy? Does it mean soup to nuts, like all the energy or not? That's the thing. And then that's what I'm not sure about right here, what they're saying, net fusion. I doubt it. I doubt it.
C: Well that's all that matters.
S: But if it's not real net energy, they're not going to be producing energy for the grid.
C: Exactly. That's all that matters.
B: Yeah, exactly. And even they may do it. Say they actually do it and it works. This is it. We've got, we could plug this into the grid. It still just might be eventually just too expensive. It's like, you know, this works, but it's just too much money. Solar and wind and geothermal is just going to be much cheaper and we can get the same for less. So then it still might be an obscure like niche thing that, oh, look at this really works, but too bad we can't make a lot of them because it's just too damn expensive. Who knows at this point.
S: But this isn't one of the science news items of the year. No, this is just a bold, bold-ass claim.
Best and Worst SGU of 2024 (09:33)
Best SGU Episodes and MomentsFavorite SGU Interview None
S: Let's start. So usually we start by just reviewing the SGU over the last year. We talked about our standout live events. You know, we'll talk about, we'll pick our own sort of favorite moments, interviews, shows, etc. And then we'll mention any feedback we got from listeners. Ian, do you have any from the like Discord or from?
IC: Yeah, I mean we could jump right into, we sent out a form from our listeners that, to our listeners that specifically call out the skeptical hero and skeptical jackass. We could scroll down to the best science news items of the year.
S: Well, let's start with SGU moments. Best interview, best episode.
IC: We have, let me give the list then. We have favorite dig on woo and nonsense, favorite Evan pun, favorite passionate moment from Jay, favorite rogue segment, and favorite astronomy segment. Maybe we can go into those. The highest, science fiction is winning currently. So that's a general statement, I think.
E: I think that wins every year.
IC: The dumbest thing of the week song.
E: Yes. Thank you for that acknowledgement, by the way. I knew the audience. I knew we had one of the best audiences in all of podcasting.
IC: Somebody said that time that Kara reminded us she's from LA.
S: That one time.
IC: That one time.
C: Oh, please. You guys should talk about Connecticut coffee.
S: Never, never.
IC: Hey, only when we're talking about pizza.
C: And weather and trees and bears. And literally everything.
E: Right.
C: What about Name That Logical Fallacy came in second place to science or fiction.
IC: That's true. Yeah, that is true. Yeah, that's a good one. Andrea, everyone likes guest rogue Andrea.
S: Yeah, she was very popular.
B: Who doesn't love Andrea?
S: I think because, you know, because she's very logical and scientific on a topic politics that we don't talk about, like political science. You know what I mean? It's it's a science that we don't talk about that much. I remember when I first saw Andrea, it was her lecture at NECSS on political science. I'm like, this is awesome. This is really good information about a topic that I usually don't hear about.
B: I specifically remember when she did when she did NECSS, I remember thinking this is the best talk of the conference. She was hilarious and it was and she made something that you wouldn't think is really as interesting as she made it. It was just I was so enamored. It's like wow. She kicked butt.
E: Well, she's a performer as well.
IC: She is. Literally a circus performer.
E: Exactly. So she combines those talents to make it to make it a very effective communicator.
C: Speaking of best talks at a conference, let's talk about Steve while he's not here. Right? How amazing was his talk at SCICon this year?
E: It kind of brought the house down.
B: It was amazing. It was amazing. I remember people going coming up to Steve afterward sobbing, almost lost it. It was like holy crap. I mean this all this from-
E: An appreciation, sobbing and appreciation.
B: -and I've just heard of other I've heard of other people talking about it at a recent skeptical event in New York this past couple of weeks like people were still talking about it such an it's such an amazing talk.
C: Absolutely. Somebody who took the survey did answer for their favorite rogue segment that the discussion on gender was really interesting and timely and Steve and Cara did a great job. What people may not realize is that Steve, I don't remember, did we talk about this on the show? Even a little bit after SCICon?
B: Yeah, we talked a little bit about it.
C: So you may remember that we talked about but you didn't get to hear that Steve gave this incredible talk in Vegas this year about sex and gender and it was really measured and it was honestly a breath of fresh air within the skeptical movement where we often see a lot of division and a lot of talks and and writings that are quite fraught.
IC: Mm-hmm.
E: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely that and these things do happen within the movement. We've seen it before and this is necessary. This is healthy and this is what does help keep the movement going frankly as far as I'm concerned.
C: And this what you're referring to is when skeptics disagree, correct, right? Yeah, that was really the title of this talk.
B: Exactly.
IC: Luckily what Steve talks about comports with reality. So there is always that.
C: That's always helpful, right?
IC: You know what I mean? That helps a little bit.
C: It does help. Just a little.
IC: Just a little.
C: I feel like we did a lot of talking about reality this year and people seem to seem to vote for a lot of favorite moments where we talked about reality as well.
E: And it is a super complicated topic. So many of the things we talked about have levels of complication, but this one in particular and it hits on so many levels, you know, scientific, social and otherwise. Very difficult for lay people to wrap their minds around what's really going on here. So this was necessary.
C: But there were a lot of really great moments for the SGU this year. Almost too many to name. What do you guys think?
E: Well, there was that time earlier this year when we were mentioned on John Oliver's show.
C: Oh, for like half a second.
B: Yeah, it was on the screen.
IC: It was there. I screenshotted.
C: 0.1 seconds.
IC: It counts.
B: This is about UFOs and regarding our talk with President Jimmy Carter on it. Which was one of the you know, still a highlight in our interview lives, but that screenshot, I took pictures of it. I took multiple pictures until it was perfect. It was hard to find that damn frame stopping the video, but oh man, loved it.
IC: And we should track what you talk about on the show versus what they then talk about on John Oliver or something like that. I feel like there's some maybe listeners in the right room.
S: It wouldn't shock me. It's not only that. It's not just like the topics that they cover. Occasionally, they say things like there's no way they heard about that outside of the skeptical movement. Like there was the one episode where they specifically talked about p-hacking. I mean p-hacking, that's totally a science-based medicine kind of skeptical phrase. Like the chances of them encountering that and understanding the role that it plays in like pseudoscience and medicine is pretty minimal unless they're plugged in to some extent to some skeptical outlets.
E: Science-based medicine.
S: Yeah, probably.
C: Yeah, or science. I mean, I do think that it's quite likely that many of the writers on that show are skeptics themselves.
S: It sounds like it.
C: Yeah, and whether they are actively monitoring, you know, skeptical literature or whether they themselves because I do think there are way more skeptics in the world than there are people plugged into the skeptic movement.
S: I hope so.
C: We've got to capture all of that.
IC: That's right.
B: Yeah, and if they're listening right now, hey, you know, maybe you can just mention our URL. That'd be cool.
S: Yeah, throw us a bone.
Science News of the Year (16:26)
James Webb Space TelescopeHIV Drug, lenacapavirCell Phone Brain cancer reviewFruitfly brain mapAD may be transferrableAncient life on MarsBad scienceDid not find Earhart’s planePentagon UFO ReportDeath of Steorn None
S: All right, you guys want to talk about science news of the year?
C: Sure.
E: Okay.
S: You know, compared to previous years, like looking at like the best, most exciting science news of the year, it was a little dry. It wasn't a lot out there. Usually it's like, oh god, it's like 50, 60 things. What am I going to talk about? It was hard for me to really find anything big.
B: To stand out, yeah.
S: Yeah, but I'm just give you a few of the ones that consistently came up that I agree. These are interesting news items. So one is just the James Webb Space Telescope, the JWST. That's big news.
B: Oh, yeah. Every past few years, it's been the top of the science news.
S: Yeah, yeah.
B: Amazing discoveries.
S: New HIV drug, Lenacafavir.
C: Yeah, that was my pick.
S: Yep, huge.
C: Basically, I mean, not a vaccine, but basically a vaccine. Six months of coverage.
S: Yeah.
C: In one shot.
J: For what?
B: Wow.
C: HIV.
E: HIV.
C: Yeah.
B: Six months in one shot.
E: A vaccination. Yep.
B: So for a year, that's, wait, a year...
C: It's not a classic vaccine in the sense of vaccine, but it is a shot.
B: Carry the five.
J: I thought that the mRNA cancer vaccines that, you know, I was reading on those recently, and that is pretty damn impressive and potentially a game changer in so many ways.
C: And that's the thing, right? When we talk about, like, best science of the year, it's often potentially cool stuff or cool stuff that actually is happening. And we always have to kind of, I think, toe that line, right? Like, I hope this thing happens. It happened in a mouse or we were able to do it once versus, yeah, like, ooh, this is like on the market or this is actually happening.
E: Yeah. Very few Eureka's or breakthroughs that hit so hard and it overshadowed everything else. Speaking of overshadowing, if I may say, what I found to be really interesting this year, more like science themes in a way, like AI was a huge overall topic with a hundred news items about AI. Something else that kind of fit that category for me was the moon. There was a lot of news items revolved around the moon.
S: Yeah.
E: Not just the eclipse. Okay, so we spoke about that already. Japan in January of 2024 achieved their first landing on the moon with their SLIM mission. Or how about in February when a private company that was the Odysseus lander. Intuitive Machines. First time a US unmanned landing happened in 50 years. It was 50 years ago. That happened also this year. China not only launched and landed on the moon, but successfully returned samples from the moon as well. Oh, did you know we got a second temporary moon this year? I believe we talked about that as well, right? And then there were the other moons within our solar system. The Europa Clipper launch, the Juice mission that got its boost around Venus this year. Three new moons identified in our solar system. One around Uranus and one around, two around Neptune. So increasing that. And of course, what they are saying was perhaps the first confirmed exomoon that they were able to discover through volcanic activity. So there were moon news items all over the place. So I think it was the year of the moon.
S: Well, but Evan, there was big Mars news that I don't know if we covered this. I think it was because it was in August when we were doing our thousandth episode.
B: Potential evidence for microbial...
S: Yeah, potential biosignatures in rock on the surface of Mars. This is not smoking gun evidence that yes, there was life on Mars, but there was organic matter decisively detected by the Perseverance rover that could be a biosignature that there was at least in the ancient Mars there may have been life. That is amazing.
E: Oh my gosh.
B: Yeah, I saw that. I came across that as well.
S: Yeah.
B: Yeah, that was interesting. But yeah, of course, like you said, no smoking gun. So don't go running around.
S: But that's certainly an important piece of evidence, organic matter on Mars. We mapped the fruit fly brain this year. That was huge.
E: Yeah, that's right. The entire brain, right? And that's the first entire mapping of an animal?
C: At that level, yeah.
S: At that level, yeah.
C: Yeah, it was like pretty, pretty resolved. It had a lot of detail, which is very cool.
IC: So we can tell what they're thinking now? Is that science?
C: Now we know their plots.
IC: Why are they following me everywhere?
S: The World Health Organization's 20-year review of cell phone and brain cancer data showing no risk of brain cancer from cell phone use. That kind, even though it was a review, that kind of science is extremely important, you know, doing a really good systematic review of like 20 years of data and putting that out there. It's like, nope, it's not causing cancer. Don't worry about it.
IC: But what about that video on TikTok?
S: That video on TikTok?
IC: That one.
C: From that guy.
E: I'm sure we're going to mention TikTok a few times.
B: That's really good news. Now I have good reason to become even more addicted to my phone.
C: Great.
E: Mine's taped to my head right now.
C: I can't give you a bunch of reasons not to. Nothing to do with it.
IC: Other issues.
B: Those reasons I ignore.
C: I love that on the poll of our listeners of their best science news item of the year, like some of the answers are so good. Like the one about black holes.
S: Yeah, that one about black holes. That one time Bob spoke about black holes.
E: That one time.
C: We got Orcas wearing hats. Oh, Havana syndrome. Remember we talked about that?
IC: That was an interesting one.
E: That was this year?
S: Yeah.
E: Oh, wow.
S: That's a complicated story.
B: Yes.
S: It really is.
C: CRISPR curing people with sickle cell?
B: CRISPR, yeah. CRISPR used to cure sickle cell. That's pretty slick, man. CRISPR, baby.
E: Yeah, CRISPR.
J: Didn't they have lab-grown kidneys too this year? Was it this year?
S: I don't think I've really crossed a line. That's kind of, you know what I mean? That's...
C: I think someone just got a pig kidney like recently, as in today or the day before. But yeah, I'm not sure if they're viable yet, the lab-grown ones.
S: There was evidence, more evidence, that Alzheimer's disease can be transferable, can transfer from human to human.
E: Oh my gosh.
S: Did you guys hear about that?
E: That's scary.
B: When the hell did that happen?
C: I was like, keep it light today.
S: How do you think that happens?
E: Eating brains.
B: If you share cerebral spinal fluid?
B: Eating brains.
S: You guys are actually on the right track. It's not specifically necessarily that, but there's increasing evidence that Alzheimer's disease, part of it is a misfolded protein, like Macau disease, that can, that is transferable.
J: Wow. Oh my God.
S: It's a misfolded beta amyloid.
C: Prions, yeah. I mean, I know it's not a prion because it's a beta amyloid. It probably has its own name, but they are terrifying.
S: Yeah.
J: So Steve, people that treat people on a daily basis have a higher chance of getting...
S: No, you got to get exposed to actual brain tissue. Yeah.
J: Okay.
C: So I guess, though, if you're doing an open surgery or something, and the person has Alzheimer's, although the ethics of that, I think, are complicated. It's hard to consent to brain surgery.
S: Speaking of TikTok, the SGU did hit a milestone.
B: Ah.
S: Our highest downloaded TikTok video, 8.7 million downloads.
J: Yeah, that's amazing.
B: Nice. That's nuts.
IC: Views, not downloads.
S: Whatever. Streams.
E: And you planned for that to happen right from the creation of the video.
S: We knew that was the one.
E: That was going to be the one.
S: When I made it, I turned to Ian, like, Ian, this is the one.
E: This is the one.
J: We knew.
S: We had no idea.
E: You used the perfect formula, is what you did. You had a plan. You put it into place.
IC: I was sitting in my pajamas, posting the video, and I was like, oh, yeah, I can feel it. I could feel it was going to hit.
S: Just in time for TikTok to get banned in the United States.
IC: Yeah, perfect.
C: Ian.
IC: What?
C: Honest answer, how old do we sound right now?
IC: I would not scream boomer from the top of my lungs, but no, it's okay.
E: With that MySpace and all.
IC: Top five. No, it was pretty out of nowhere. I just looked at it. I was like, this has to be a mistake. Like, clearly, we didn't hit a million views in a day. And now it's up to, like, 9 million. It keeps going up, even though it has kind of peaks.
S: It's leveling off. Yeah, it's like 8.7 right now.
J: It just goes to show you how random that is.
IC: It's very random. I don't know what we did.
B: Nobody knows.
E: So does that mean quantity matters?
C: I mean, I don't say this to belittle, but, like, that's not that high for TikTok.
IC: No, certainly. It's not massive.
B: Yeah, it's high for us.
C: No, totally. It is high for us. But no, Evan, I wouldn't say it's a quantity reason. It's just it's a fluke. Somebody shares something, and it takes off.
IC: Yeah, the algorithm is weird, and, you know, it just picks what it likes randomly.
C: Well, people pick what they like.
IC: That's true, too. Yeah, and that influences the algorithm.
C: But then the big things get shared more because they get seen more. It's like a runaway effect.
IC: Right, feedback loop kind of thing.
B: And then, of course, there's my favorite topic that I covered this year, this news item. If you remember, it was the nuclear pasta talk, which was my favorite. I was just giggling while I was researching it more than anything else. If you remember, we're talking about not black holes, but neutron stars. And if you go a certain depth, not too deep, but a certain depth, you have the strong force and the electrostatic force battling it out for supremacy, right? And there's a balance with these forces such that it distorts nuclear matter into these stable states. And the scientists that I love so much, my favorite scientists, because they call these states, there's the gnocchi state, there's the spaghetti, lasagna, and bucatini, depending on how the stable shape that these nuclear forces kind of put them in. And they are so strong. I mean, they're inside a neutron star. So this is no surprise that the strength or sheer modulus, a quintillion times the strength of diamond. So that was just so much fun, the idea that these guys, you know, being an Italian, astronomy geek, of course, I love this. And it was just one of my favorite news items to research.
E: And I knew immediately it had nothing to do with black holes, because that is strictly spaghettification.
B: Well, actually, no. But okay.
C: Do we talk about, I know we're going to talk about pseudoscience. Do we talk about the most like terrifying news item or do we just skip that?
S: Go ahead.
B: Yeah, do it.
C: I mean, very recently, as in like just, was it last week, for me, the fact that scientists discovered that only one gene mutation is necessary for the bird flu to go from human to human transmission, when we used to think that three different mutations had to happen.
B: Ah.
S: Just one away.
C: One away with a very, we will be getting there, but a very interesting team in place to handle that.
IC: Oh, Lord.
C: There was a lot of like scary bad news about the climate this year. I mean, there's a lot going on. It's just always the hottest.
E: Do we know yet or they haven't announced it?
S: We are on track for 2024 to be the hottest year on record. Keeping the last 10 years as the hottest last 10 years on record. Yeah, probably not a coincidence. Scientists predicted it. Climate deniers denied it. The deniers were wrong. Absolutely wrong.
IC: Will they admit it?
S: No. Again, they just moved the goalposts.
E: Yep, shrug.
S: All right, it's warm, but how do we know what people are doing? All right, people are doing it, but how do we know it's going to be a bad thing? All right, it's going to be a bad thing, but what can we do about it?
E: Right.
C: We can't afford that.
E: And then, Steve, why didn't you tell us sooner? Yeah, why didn't you tell us sooner?
C: You and your mixed messages.
S: So you guys remember earlier in the year, we talked about the deep sea vision that announced they may have spotted Amelia Earhart's plane.
C: Oh, yeah.
E: My gosh.
S: What we didn't say is that in November, they said, oh, never mind. They said it was just a natural rock formation. That was it.
C: Oh, really?
S: Never mind.
E: How many times in history has something natural been mistaken for something artificial like that?
S: All the time. Again, just one more example. Like when you're looking at things, either like you're looking at things at the bottom of the ocean, or you're looking at things from like satellite imagery, looking at the Earth, or looking at other planets. Yeah, rocks can look like stuff. You know what I mean? Natural formation-
E: Straight lines happen.
S: -can look like stuff. You got the face on Mars. Remember the Bigfoot on Mars?
C: Pareidolia.
E: Sure.
S: Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff. And so this, yeah, it kind of looked like a plane, but it didn't look like Amelia Earhart's plane, and like the details didn't match. And again, it's the blob squash phenomenon. Like it was indistinct enough that it could be a plane, could be a rock.
IC: Maybe it was an underwater drone.
S: It turned out it was a rock, you know?
E: Breaking news. Amelia Earhart's drone discovered at the bottom of the ocean.
S: But what's interesting, though, is if you look very, very closely in the cockpit of the plane was Bigfoot flying. You could clearly see.
E: Well, who else?
S: The continuous Pentagon UFO nonsense is still a big story of the year.
E: It's going to get worse, too.
S: It's going to get worse.
E: It's going to get worse.
S: I just feel like we lost that one, you know, in a way. Because the UFO nuts managed to get enough attention at the government level that people now have this baseline impression, just like in society, that, oh, the government says that UFOs are real. Like, this is a thing now. And you have mainstream journalists writing in like the New York Times, like, yeah, UFOs exist now. They're real. It's like, no, that's not what happened, people. That's not what happened. This is nothing. This is the same old cranks shopping around the same old, you know, debunked evidence and just more blurry indistinct photos, just like this Amelia Earhart's plane natural rock formation. It's nothing. It's nothing. But they managed to just cross that line, you know, culturally. It's just really frustrating.
E: Yeah. It's cultural saturation, as I like to call it. We talked about this at our thousandth recording in Chicago.
S: Yeah.
E: Looking back at 20 years worth of this evidence, and it's the same story, just repackaged.
S: Yeah, just repackaged.
E: In modern terms and examples. Nothing has changed.
S: This year also saw the death of Stern. Talk about repackaging the same old nonsense.
E: Finally.
S: The free energy machines, right? Every time they pop up, like, no, there's no free energy. You can't violate the laws of thermodynamics. Sorry. No. But then it's the same crap. Oh, but we really did it this time. It's like, no, no, you didn't. Then it takes years to play out. It's like, oh, it looks like they didn't do it. Of course they didn't do it.
E: It did. A little sad to see that one go. It gave us, I think, at least a half dozen segments or news items to talk about over the 15 years that it lasted.
S: Ian, is there anything else?
IC: Favorite Evan pun. Did you know that that is an item on our form?
E: Took me by surprise.
IC: That people, I guess, love to comment on. Even in the Discord, they talk about each episode. It's like, did you hear this one? Did you hear that one? Especially the ones that are under your breath that Steve apparently catches, but maybe flies by.
E: Eventually I edit, yes. It's like leaving an Easter egg for my co-hosts.
IC: That's right. On episode 1013, which is 1013, Steve mentioned weasels and Evan quietly said, pop. Not sure if it qualifies as a pun.
E: Absolutely.
IC: I had to pause while I laughed.
E: It was deliberate.
C: Evanism.
E: I received several DMs through my Facebook account on that one about four people.
IC: Most people say they need a list to pick, like multiple choice, like all of them.
E: Yeah, it's not something we track.
IC: That's true.
E: Not like quotes or statistics for science or fiction, but maybe going forward, that should be something.
IC: Yeah, if anybody wants to do that work.
E: Maybe Ian will come out here for that.
C: The AI will be what it's actually good for.
E: That would be a good use of AI. Go through the transcript of every episode for the year and pull out all the puns. Oh, I like it.
IC: There's one person who says, I dislike puns. It's like, okay, buddy.
C: I don't like chocolate. I hate massages. All right. Cool guy.
IC: All right, buddy. Anyway, good work on that, Evan. From Jay, passionate moment. Let's see if it has seeped into the milieu of the podcast. What do you guys think is the most popular Jay passionate moment?
S: Does that include the live streams or just on the show?
IC: It includes the live streams. Hint, hint, wink, wink.
S: I mean Jay's epic meltdown a couple of weeks ago.
IC: There we are.
J: I mean, would you call it a meltdown?
S: A hundred percent.
IC: Explosion.
C: Yeah. Not everybody who listens to the show watches the live stream. I'm not on the live stream. So tell us what happened.
IC: Yeah, Jay.
J: So, I mean, look, I've made it very clear where I stand politically. And I know this is a skeptical podcast, but the bottom line is, you know, I am a human being and I'm going to react in one way or another. So it was a week after the election. I was so bottled up after that travesty. Steve and I were doing our live stream, business as usual. Everything's cool. We're laughing. We're doing some funny segments. You know, Steve and I had some good banter going on. And then Ian pops up this video of RFK talking about how the Democrats have, you know, basically like democratized or, you know.
C: Politicized?
J: No, basically like they've quantified nature to like it's a transactional relationship that we have with nature. But he thinks that nature, we should preserve nature because humans have this spiritual connection. He gets all into that vein of things. Right. I freaked out. Right. Like I all of a sudden I'm like, this guy is going to be in charge of the health of millions of people. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, babies are going to die because they're not going to get vaccinated. And, you know, trans people are going to have a hell of a time getting health care that they need. You know, and he thinks that, you know, people become trans because of chemicals in the water. You know, all this is going through my head. And next thing I know, I'm screaming. I just started screaming.
IC: Yep.
J: And then I proceeded to tell Steve, Ian and everybody watching every single thing that I felt that I've not said in the past week. And it went on for a very long time. And it was cathartic, I have to admit.
C: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask if it was cathartic.
J: Yeah, of course it was.
C: We don't often have an audience for those moments.
J: Yeah. You know, I got, you know, some people didn't like it, of course. A lot of people, you know, seem to completely understand and share similar feelings. You know, most of us in the skeptical movement, I think, are skeptical of Trump. You know, we watched everything that he's done. And, you know, look, it's not about, like I am, I don't care about political parties. I've made that perfectly clear. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm a voter. And I think over the last 20 years of me honing my skeptical skills, that I can look at someone and make a judgment call on them and not have party affiliation in any way, you know, get involved. I just don't care about that.
C: Well, it also doesn't capture people anymore. Like, it's weird. Like if you put RFK on a map and go, what party is this man in? You'd be like, well.
S: It's hard to say.
C: Yeah, over here he's this, over there he's that.
S: To reiterate our position, which I think is important for our audience to understand, we are nonpartisan. It doesn't mean we're not political because we talk about issues that have a political dimension. It's unavoidable. Just like we are not anti-religion, but we will talk about religious topics that have a scientific or critical thinking angle. We will talk about creationism as a pseudoscience, right? So, the thing about Trump, which has really been challenging for us, when we were trying to maintain our show as a science show and critical thinking show that's not, you know, nakedly partisan, is that Trump is a global warming denier. He is, really has a lot of anti-vaccine views, right? He has a lot of pseudoscientific views. And we talked about him, I've been writing about him long before he became a political candidate, about on these facts. He's a conspiracy theorist. You know, we have to talk about those things. They are perfectly cromulent skeptical topics, no matter what your partisanship is, right? Whether you are Republican or Democrat or whatever, he's still a naked global warming denier, a pseudoscientist. And same thing, RFK, I don't care if he's a Democrat or Republican, the guy is a crank from beginning to end. He is a dangerous crank. And it is bad for our country to have a medical crank in charge of our healthcare. That's not a partisan issue. That is a science and skepticism issue, 100%.
J: Yeah, and that's why, you know, I got hit emotionally so hard, you know, dealing with the reality of people now that are going to assume massive power, pulling in very important levers. And I think we're going to see a significant and very dangerous downturn in the quality of lots of things, but healthcare in particular is what I've been really focusing on since the election.
S: The risk is certainly there. We don't know how things are going to actually play out, but the risk is certainly there.
C: No, but we know that there's intentionality for things to happen that will end in death.
J: So in the end, that was it. You know, Steve was trying to reel me back in. And, you know, most of the times in my life, Steve is very good at reeling me back in. He could not reel me back in.
S: We eventually got you there. It took some time.
J: Yeah, but I mean, you know, the end result was—
E: There was a meatball involved.
J: I wish I didn't do it, you know, simply because—
E: You wish you didn't have to do it, right?
J: Yeah, I guess I wish I wasn't put in a situation where, you know, look, I'm a highly emotional person. Like I'm going to have emotional outbursts and stuff like that. It was a little bit too much for me to keep bottled up, and I guess I should have started talking about it, you know, and letting it out.
C: That's the difference, yeah.
J: Yeah.
IC: It's funny that you thought it was that one because—
B: It's fine. It was such an extreme event that happened, really. I mean it was really—
IC: It's true.
B: In all of our thinking, it was disastrous for not only the country but beyond. Yeah, so what? You vent it a little bit. I mean, come on. It's probably healthier to vent it than keep it in and explode like I'm going to do when I'm 70.
C: But I thought you did explode.
S: He did.
J: No, I did. It was an unmitigated explosion.
B: It was a controlled explosion. I'm talking about the psychologically damaging effects when you hold stuff in for long periods of time.
C: That is a result of holding things in. That is not emotion regulation.
J: Cara, you and I have talked about this a lot. I am a firm believer in expressing your emotions. Don't be stoic to the point where you're not talking to yourself about your emotions. You're bottling it up. You're hiding everything that you think and feel from other people. There's some aspect of that going on here. The subtext in our society is like you can't show any seams. I don't like that and I don't operate that way.
C: No, you've got to feel your feelings and then the work is in learning how to regulate your emotions.
J: Definitely.
S: Expressing yourself is fine, just not necessarily on a live stream.
C: This is the question I often ask my patients and I know it's going to sound pithy and kind of silly, but sit with it for a second. Do you have your feelings or do your feelings have you?
S/J: Yeah.
C: I know it's silly, but you want to have your feelings. When your feelings start to have you, there's probably some work to be done in learning how to regulate your emotions a little bit.
J: I think, again, to put an exclamation point at the end of this, sometimes your feelings do have you and that's okay. It's going to happen. It shouldn't be a daily event. Absolutely not.
C: Well, even when your feelings have you, you should have done the work so that your behavior is not detrimental. It is not good to explode in anger. It is not good to react in a way that causes pain and suffering to the people around you. I'm not saying that's what you did. I'm just saying that's what can happen when your feelings have you. And that's what we work on, right? We can't control what we feel, but we can control what we do when we feel those things.
J: Yeah.
C: It takes work.
S: Ian, anything else from the peanut gallery?
IC: Yeah. Well, it's funny that Jay picked that one because it seems like the consensus is the Olive Garden rant more than that.
J: Yeah, that was awesome.
E: Oh, yes. My gosh.
J: The Olive Garden thing was funny and I think very factual.
E: It was fact-driven.
IC: So from a recent venture at CSICon, who do you think the favorite interview is? I'm just going to tell you. It's Brian Cox.
S: Oh, yeah. Brian Cox was awesome.
E: Sure.
B: It was a no-brainer for the year, for even, I'd say, five years. I mean, Brian Cox.
C: Yeah, he's great, but coming in very close under. And we've got Andrea, Kevin Folta, and Michael Mann all tied. My vote is for Andrea Love and Michael Mann. I thought those were great interviews.
S: I really liked the Michael Mann interview.
J: Yeah, I did too. I mean, you know what, though?
B: That was wonderful as well, yeah.
J: I love when we interview Kevin because, you know, first of all, I'm a huge fan of fruit. And anytime Kevin talks about his farm and what he's doing and, like, you know, the industry and the secret things that he knows about how screwed up the industry is. And, you know, like one thing I keep asking him the same thing because I just love hearing him talk about, like, how, you know, they've selectively bred fruit to be beautiful and big. But the flavor's gone, you know, and he knows all about that. And I sometimes I'll send Kevin, like, images of fruit I find on the Internet and be like, what is this? I want to get that, you know. So anyway, I love that interview we did with Kevin because I thought we hit on a series of really cool topics that were all kind of revolving around fruit and pesticides and all that stuff. I find it really fun and interesting.
B: And don't forget, I got to throw in there our buddy Christian Hubicki. It's his we did. I think we did maybe two interviews with him this year, didn't we?
E: He was with us as a special appearance in Chicago over the Internet and a standalone interview as well.
IC: That's right.
B: He's always fun and informative, which is a great killer combination.
J: Well, he's another person where, you know, he's got an expertise that we're all interested in, but we don't really get to talk about that much.
B: Robotics expert.
J: Yeah. He's a roboticist and, you know, he's actively working on pushing that ball forward. And, like, you know, he was one of the first people that – well, I think he was actually the very first person I talked to that was, like, explained it to me in a way that I got it. Like, why is it so hard? And, you know, he kind of likened it to, you know, look at autonomous cars. Like, we got really far. We got to the 80 percent mark pretty fast. But it's that last 20 percent that means everything and that has all the special stuff that we want that's going to be super hard and time consuming to get to. You know, will we have a humanoid robot walking around our home doing laundry? You know, and he said, you know, not soon. You know, like, it's going to take time. It's going to take a lot of time.
S: I think the theme here is what the favorite interviews have in common is those people who have a very high level of topic expertise in an area that we're interested in and they're great science communicators.
B: Yeah.
S: Right?
B: Yeah, for sure.
S: That's why I have to mention, you know, we said about Michael Mann. He, like, of all of the science communicators, the scientists talking about climate change, he's totally dialed in. He totally gets it. Like, not just the science, but the actual cultural contest that we are engaged in. You know what I mean?
IC: Because he was in the fire, so to speak. Wasn't he?
S: The crosshairs. Yeah, he's the hockey stick guy.
IC: And the little trick or something in one of his emails or something?
S: The high, the decline. No, that wasn't him.
IC: Oh, good. But the hockey stick.
S: But he was the hockey stick guy, yeah.
IC: Yeah.
[commercial brake]
Skeptical Hero of the Year (47:11)
None
S: All right. Let's move on. We got the skeptical hero and the skeptical jackass of the year. Which one should we do first?
J: I'm going to start with the skeptical hero.
S: Okay.
E: Yeah.
J: All right. This is obvious, right? For those of you especially who are at the SGU 1000th show, I mean, without a doubt, Steve, I'm picking you as the skeptical hero for a few reasons I think that everyone will agree with. First, I know Steve's my brother, and it might seem a little corny or cliche, but just hear me out. Steve has been the host of this podcast for 20 years. Steve has produced over 1,000 shows. He's never missed one because Steve has to be the primary host and Steve does all the editing. It's a massive, incredibly time-consuming thing that Steve has over the years. It went from about 10 hours. I think, Steve, you're down to about, what, four hours of editing a week now?
S: No, but the show's gotten longer, right? So it used to be an hour, then an hour 20. Now it's more like an hour 40, 50. It's still taking me six hours to do the show.
J: It's an incredible amount of work, and Steve's dedication is remarkable. Cara, you weren't there from the beginning, but you do know Steve is the driving force that makes everything happen. I gave a speech about Steve at the 1000th show. I know that Steve didn't publish that. So you can hear that speech if you're a patron of the SGU, even at the $0 amount. You're just a patron at the $0 level. You could see that video of me giving that speech about Steve. That'll be in the feed when you listen to the show. So bottom line is I realized this as we were coming up on the 1000th show. I realized I have a very inside picture of all the work that Steve does, and Steve and I run the SGU together. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of happiness. It's a lot of tears. There's a lot of frustrating things. But overall, this project and this work that we do has been an enormously positive thing in our lives. And I can't help but look at it and realize that Steve, without him, it wouldn't exist. It couldn't exist, I think, without Steve in its current form. And I just wanted everyone to realize that listening to the show, Steve is the person that fills up the oil lamps and makes sure that the clocks and trains are on time in a profound way. I have to say that I gave Steve a samurai sword as his award. I didn't want to give him some acrylic plaque with his name on it that has like a starburst. I've seen a million of those.
S: Oh, man. I could have gotten the starburst plaque?
J: Shooting star one. But I've seen those, and I was thinking I want to get something for Steve. Bottom line is the samurai sword hit me, and I'm like, oh, my god, this is perfect.
E: Hope you're OK.
J: And then I called George, and George helped me kind of like flesh out some ideas and everything, and it all really came together well. So we presented Steve the sword as his award for doing the show for 20 years and for being our leader. I mean, Steve, you know this. I've said this to you many times. You have always been a hero of mine. You're my skeptical hero. You're one of my best friends. You're my brother. You're someone I've looked up to my entire life. From all the way back, Steve has been there giving me advice. Steve was the guy that told me. I'll repeat this till I die. It had a massive impact on me. Steve said, and I was young. I was probably like nine years old when he told me this. Not everybody grows up. You don't automatically become an adult when you get older. You have to work at being an adult to get yourself there. And it changed me because I realized I was coasting. And for the years that followed, I'm like, I got to try to be an adult. I have to put that energy in. And if it weren't for Steve, I'm not sure who I'd be or what I'd be or what I'd be doing with my creative time right now. It could have been nothing. I'd like to think otherwise, but it very well could have been that. So, Steve, I want to thank you. And I think everyone that listens to this show should take a moment to appreciate the fact that we are all part of this SGU community. And it's largely because of you. And I love you. And I think you're just one of the best people I've ever met in my life.
S: Thank you, Jay. I really appreciate that. That means a lot to me.
J: And watch the video. Everybody watch the video because you will see the side of Steve States. And he's almost crying for about five minutes.
S: Yeah, I was pretty verklempt the whole time.
E: He wasn't crying. You were crying.
IC: By the time you hear this, it will be available on Patreon for everyone, for free members. So there you go.
J: And I wanted to say one more thing to add a little flourish to our mention about Steve's talk at CSICon. That talk was very, very impactful. There was a lot of layers to the onion there that Steve presented to all of us. First of all, Steve was saying we need to talk as skeptics. We need to be able to have discussions with each other. It's okay for us to disagree. We have to do it in a constructive way. And we should kind of get our story together before we go public with things. We should spend the time talking to each other, figure things out, and then we could turn a collective face to the public. I agree with that sentiment. Steve also was talking about an issue that means a lot to a lot of people, this issue about biological sex. It's not something that most people have an opinion about it one way or the other. I know that Steve's position is based on science and on critical thinking. Because we've talked about it so much and we've gone into the weeds and I've read most of Steve's blogs, if not all of them, about it. Steve isn't coming at this with any kind of preconception. He wants to know what the science says. And he's talked to experts and he's done an amazing amount of reading and consideration. So I just think it's important that Steve did do this, put the energy in. I think it's a really important topic. When Steve finished his talk, Barry Carr, who is the executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry at CSICon, he's also the producer of the CSICon conference. He said that that was one of the most impactful skeptical talks that he's ever heard and he's been around for pretty much all of them. And I would definitely agree. As someone who attended almost every TAM and went to every single NECSS that was on the board and was running that with everybody else during those years when it was all live. And then we went to live stream. I've been around these talks. I've heard everything. I thought Steve's talk was not only entertaining on its surface, but my God, it had a punch that was so freaking hard. It was so valuable and it was the kind of talk that I didn't realize that I was craving. I want to hear talks like that because it was provocative. There was humor in there. There was a lot of Steve's personality in there and it had very important messages and I learned a lot from listening to it. And I just think that, Steve, it was a triumph of you to do that and give such a high quality talk. I mean that was you at the top of your freaking game.
'S: Well, thanks. That's it. Doesn't get any better than that?
C: It's all downhill from here, Steve.
S: All downhill. No, I appreciate it, Jay. The important thing I really wanted to get across is that this is what we should be talking about at these conferences. The stuff we disagree about, that's what we have to talk about. That's where we will learn the most and hone our understanding. Again, this also gets back to the psychological humility. We need to be humble. We need to be humble. We are not topic experts on everything. We are part of a community that has a ton of topic experts. We need to be talking to each other and take our own freaking advice. Listen to our own experts. I just think we need to do a lot more of that, especially on these controversial topics.
J: And an important side note here, throughout the years, including ourselves, we are aware that we have biases. Bob and I, in particular, are really positive about future technology. It's been something that we've been interested in since we were kids. I want to believe that we're going to have a fusion reactor. You know what I mean? I want to believe that it's going to be unbelievable. I'm also a big fan of artificial intelligence. I use ChatGPT all the time. I think we have to realize that all of us have these chinks in our armor, right? We will turn a blind eye to certain things. We all have sacred cows.
S: But we keep each other honest.
J: We need to keep each other honest. We've seen over the years many skeptics, many high-profile skeptics get major things wrong. And we're wrong as well. We're in that group as well. But I'm just saying the humility that Steve is talking about, you have to have it because no one is perfect, right? We all are going to make these mistakes continuously for our entire lives. We're all going to do it. Hopefully we can lower the instances of it. But it's always going to be there. And that humility is so freaking important. Thank you again, Steve. That was another thing you taught me that really changed the way I look at my reality.
S: All right. Thank you, Jay. All right. Nobody else could pick me now. You have to mention other people that are your skeptical heroes.
C: Well, you know what's funny is I couldn't find one this year. Like I really struggled. Skeptical jackass was really easy.
S: Yeah, we'll get to that.
C: And we'll get there.
B: I got one.
C: But skeptical hero was tough. I mean, I would definitely second what Jay is saying. The only other person I really thought of was Kamala for fighting the good fight and for really keeping Trump honest during those debates, you know, and really like fact checking in real time, pushing back against the rampant pseudoscientific claims that he was making. There are so many people out there fighting the good fight. But I couldn't come up with a single person this year whose heroism, other than you, Steve, like honestly rises to a matching level of the jackassery that we saw this year. And that worries me.
S: That's interesting that you say that. I'll give you my opinion when you come in, it gets to be my turn.
C: Yeah.
B: Well, then in that case, Cara, you got to do what I did. You got to broaden your definitions a little bit. My skeptical hero is the Pentagon.
C: OK.
B: Because of what they did March 2024, the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, AARO, released their UAP/UFO report. Their report was the biggest in scope and most thorough report of its kind as far as I can tell. Their conclusion was this. To date, AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence of classified program that has not been properly reported to Congress. Their scope was 1945 to 2023 and including classified information. There was no credible – not one report was credible or, of course, there was no physical evidence. It was a great report. Of course, not many people heard about it or cared about it and it did not even one wit to change the true believers, of course, because that's the way – that's what they do. Evidence is meaningless. But still, I was really fascinated reading that report and reading the reporting about it. They really did a fantastic job. They went to classified documentation that nothing was sacrosanct, that they couldn't add to their report. Of course, they found nothing because there's nothing in there. We all know there's nothing to it. But still, they did a great job regardless if it really didn't have much of an effect, of an impact because how much impact do we even have? I mean come on.
S: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
E: Well, that dovetails, Bob, with my choice for someone who's a hero of the year and not because he did something this past year. I think he needs to be recognized frankly for his body of work over say the last maybe six, seven years that he's been in this game now. Mick West who is there at the ready, at the call. He is our go-to person in our community and frankly for everybody when it comes to understanding what these UAPs could possibly be. And he explains it so beautifully through his series of videos and all the other explanations that he gives. I am so surprised he's not part and has not been asked to be a part of these investigations, congressional and otherwise, involving this. Because his insights and his ability to really give good explanations as to what people are actually seeing goes beyond anything else anyone is doing in this particular field right now. He needs to be acknowledged and for those of you who are the old school skeptics, he is our modern day Philip Class. And we're very, very appreciative that he's doing and continues to do this work because it's going to get more important as these sightings and things increase over time.
IC: Yeah, and I think let me double on that with Mick West. The patrons definitely think that Mick West is one of the skeptical heroes. Let me run through maybe the list of what they think real quick. Michael Mann, a bunch of the people that we also interviewed. Paul Offit, Dr. Brian Cox, Dr. Mike, which I think they said either of them, Dr. Mike probably Varshavsky and Dr. Mike Isratel. They're pretty cool science communicators on the YouTubes. Hank Green, if you guys are old time YouTube heads, Hank Green, the Green Boys are actually pretty cool. Also Coffeezilla who pushes back a lot on like crypto stuff is pretty neat to check out. I have to agree with Cara's point is like I couldn't think of a skeptical hero either that matches the jackassery that is out there. So I kind of picked and it's a little pandering, but I'm thinking like the skeptical listeners and critical thinkers out there who are still like in the fight to promote, you know, science or critical thinking or humanism or fighting for the good, greater good or whatever. They seem to at least it could have easily fallen into where they're just like, forget it. We lost, you know, it's like it's too much. Depression has suppressing things have happened and we can't go on. But that they're still here and listening and also pushing forward is that. Thank you for still being a critical thinker because we need you guys probably for the next four to 40 years.
C: Everybody at Thanksgiving dinner who kept the table sane. Yeah, I appreciate that.
IC: The one cousin.
S: All right. Well, next time I'm going first because you guys stole a lot of my thunder. But this is my this is my honor.
E: That makes us gods.
S: But this is my honest pick. I'm not just reacting to what you guys said. Seriously. So I have three layers of my skeptical hero of the year because I agree there wasn't any one person who I thought deserved more of a mention than any other person. So first, I want to recognize my fellow rogues. You know, again, standing by my side for 20 years, working really hard, tirelessly, never saying no. You guys just do whatever, whatever we want. We do it. You know what I mean? And this is our lives. So this is what we're doing. You know, this is what we have chosen to spend a lot of our time doing is just making the world a slightly more skeptical place. Beyond you, all of our fellow skeptical activists, people, again, who have not they're not just skeptics. They're like, this is what I'm doing. I am going to start a podcast, start a blog, get out there, try to educate myself, try to communicate this, try to be, you know, advocate for science, skepticism, critical thinking. Maybe in a narrow area that they're an expert in, maybe in general. And that includes you, Ian, and everybody who's just lending their skills to this whole effort of promoting skepticism. And then beyond that, of course, as Ian said, is all of our listeners. It's the community because, again, we're nothing without our community. That's literally true. Again, we'd be talking to ourselves. And so I think we do have to recognize that we are a community, all of us. And even though we are all flawed, we all make mistakes. We disagree sometimes, even on important subjects. We agree on one big, huge thing. And that is the importance of science and reasoning and reason in our world and that it's worth fighting for. We are all on the same side, I think, in the biggest fight of our civilization right now, which is the fight for enlightenment and science and reason over, you know, emotions and hatred and partisanship and tribalism and all the things that are trying to drag us back down.
E: It's the candle in the dark, as Carl Sagan explained it. It is absolutely that.
S: Absolutely. To everyone. So this is really to everyone who is standing up for that candle in the darkness.
Skeptical Jackass of the Year (1:04:25)
None
S: Now, we're talking about the skeptical jackass of the year. I'm going to go first this time.
E: Speaking of the darkness.
IC: No, we should just all say it at once. We know there's one person.
S: I know. I'm going first. It's RFK Jr. I have to say it. Come on. I have to be the one to say it. He is the skeptical jackass of the year.
IC: Yeah.
S: He embodies everything that we warn against. He is a crank. He is a pseudoscientist. He's a conspiracy theorist. And he is tireless at promoting this nonsense. I think because the guy has a massive ego. He has absolutely no humility. He's not a scientist. He's not a doctor. He's not a clinician. He's not a topic expertise. He thinks he knows better than everybody freaking else. And he was also willing to sell out any of his principles so he can get into a position to promote his pseudoscience.
B: And by the way, Steve, everything you just said describes Trump. Everything.
S: I agree. I agree with that, Bob.
C: Yeah.
S: As we said, that's – but RFK Jr. is as David Gorsky said – David Gorsky who runs Science-Based Medicine. Again, one of these warriors just quietly just working every day. The guy's father died this week. And he's like, Steve. I'm not sure I can get a post out on Monday. I'm like, David, take off as long as you need.
IC: I know.
S: He's worried about getting a post out. He's been just in the ICU holding his father's hands for a week and then he passed away. He's just such a tireless warrior. And he wrote about RFK that he is an extinction level event for science-based medicine in the United States at the federal level. Absolutely true. I hate to sound like an alarmist, but that's sort of the trolling thing that puts us into this no-win scenario where things are so extreme, if you accurately describe them, you sound like you're an alarmist. But it's like, no, but that's actually really true. Like the worst possible person I literally can imagine in the world might be put in charge of healthcare of the United States. It's crazy.
C: That's the scary part, right? Is that he existed before this year and he actually did a lot of damage before this year.
S: Absolutely. We know he did.
C: Yeah. But this is the year that Trump, who you can't separate the two of them-
S: Yeah, of course.
C: -is working to embolden and empower RFK to be unleashed on all of us. That's what's so scary. It can't be Trump every year, so it has to be RFK. But there is no RFK at this level without Trump. That's the scary part.
IC: Yeah. It's unfortunate he had a pretty impactful career early on where he actually did some good.
S: Yeah. He was an environmental lawyer.
C: Totally.
S: Initially, if he just kept up with that, that would have been fine.
E: Yeah. Stick with your wheelhouse.
S: He just is such an ideologue. I just wrote about him today on Science-Based Medicine because it was that TikTok video that we reviewed a couple of weeks ago where he's like, what's the cause of the obesity epidemic? It's poison in our food. No, it isn't poison in our food. It's not GMOs. He thinks it's GMOs. He just says things that are demonstrably, scientifically wrong. He doesn't care about the facts and the science. He has a narrative, and he is doubling, tripling down on that narrative, and that's all that matters. Everything's a toxin. Everything. Everything's a conspiracy. It's just like, it's like, but there's the evidence. He doesn't care. It's just utter nonsense. It's so infuriating that anybody would look at him and think that he is anything other than the absolute crank that he is.
C: Well, and that's, I think, the scariest part with men like RFK, possibly to some extent like Trump, definitely like Elon. They're my trifecta of the skeptical jackasses of the internet, the three-headed snake, is that there is something in at least Musk and RFK that felt moral and that felt just early on, that built them a very large following. And then that decline and that shift into this authoritarian and, I don't know, this movement away from environmental values, because really both of them, that's what people thought they had.
S: One of the things I really liked about Musk was that he was all in on solving global warming. He was going to use his billions to build electric cars and build batteries, you know what I mean, build solar panels, specifically for global warming. Now he's like, maybe it's not going to be that bad. Maybe people are being overly worried about global warming. Really, so you compromise the one thing I really admired about him.
C: With him, he did start to show those kind of megalomaniacal tendencies early on. I'm nervous about RFK because I think that's probably coming down the pipe.
S: I think it comes down to what we said. I think all three of those men have a fatal lack of humility, absolute lack of humility, and that is a massive problem. It's a massive problem.
C: Absolutely. A feeling like you know what is best for humanity based on your experience and perspective of the world with no interest in making that more global, in broadening that perspective and asking for the opinions of other people from other places.
S: Or patience for a process. It's all about the process.
C: Frightening. It's so frightening.
S: I mean, does anybody else have any honorable mentions? Or I think that pretty much covers it.
IC: No, I think that was pretty much it. We can look at what people said.
S: Okay.
E: Who else did they have?
IC: I mean, it really is basically the three people that we said. Let me see if I can even find anybody.
S: Any honorable mentions for...
IC: Yeah, it's like pretty much like any cabinet picks also is included into that. Hey, Marjorie Taylor Greene got a shout out. So there's one for her.
E: Anyone not involved?
IC: I mean, she's just silly at this point. It's just really, yeah, it's like, it's RFK all the way down and Elon and Trump.
S: Okay.
IC: Mike Tyson apparently got a shout out. I don't know what he did.
E: Mike Tyson?
IC: I mean, he fought...
E: Oh, it's because he threw the fight?
IC: I guess that's, yeah, I mean, whatever. He did kind of throw, you know...
E: Yeah, he cashed out basically in the second round.
IC: Whatever.
E: That's a whole other story.
IC: Get the money. Yeah, so that's basically it.
E: Honourable mention.
C: That Kennedy fella.
IC: It's pretty funny.
In Memoriam (1:11:04)
James Earl JonesTeri GarrMaggie SmithPhil DonahueRuth WestheimerGeorge Joseph Kresge Jr (The Amazing Kreskin)Mark EdwardScientistsPeter Higgs (Nobel winning physicists, Higgs Boson)Ed Stone (director Jet Propulsion Laboratory)William Anders (astronaut, “Earthrise” photographer)Philip Zimbardo (Stamford prison experiment)Maxine Singer (geneticist, shaped rules for genetic engineering)Warren Washington (climate scientists, made model of climate) None
S: All right, let's move on to in memoriam. This is just to, you know, to remember, recognize some of the people that we care about that we lost throughout the year. There was really one prominent skeptic who died this year. Sorry, if I'm missing anybody, please email us and we'll add them in later. But, you know, we talked about Mark Edward, a friend of ours who, you know, again was a good, you know, activist, skeptic, magician, author, did a lot of work, you know, to promote science and critical thinking. And we did lose him this year, unfortunately. Mark was a good guy. There are some non-scientists that I want to mention that had a prominent role just culturally. James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader.
B: Darth Vader died.
S: Yeah.
B: God damn it.
S: Terry Garr.
B: Yep.
S: So if you were basically, if you were on Star Trek or Star Wars, you're going to get mentioned if you die. And Maggie Smith. So this is the trifecta she was in.
E: Maggie Smith.
S: Harry Potter. No, she was a great actress. Loved her character. But yeah, she was amazing.
E: Yeah. My gosh, her career was immense.
S: Phil Donahue. I want to mention, because we mentioned culturally important people from a skeptical point of view, as well as, you know, science fiction. Phil Donahue really began the descent of daytime television into the death spiral of infotainment. You know, I don't know that he was literally the first, but he was, I think, the most important, you know, person in the 1980s.
B: He was huge, yeah.
S: Had a huge impact on the direction of media. And he was, of course, eclipsed by later, even worse examples.
E: Yeah, I suppose there would be no Jerry Springer if it wasn't for Phil Donahue or Morton Downey Jr.
S: Morton Downey.
B: Oh my god, Morton Downey.
E: Remember that?
C: Or would it have happened anyway?
E: Yeah, hard to know.
C: It's hard to know.
E: But Donahue was a trailblazer in the medium.
C: There's always going to be a first.
S: But again, that's like saying, yeah, the science would have been discovered anyway, but we're still going to recognize the person who actually made the discovery, you know.
E: Maury Povich, too.
S: You guys remember Ruth Westheimer?
E: Dr. Ruth.
S: Dr. Ruth.
E: I met her once.
S: Oh, really?
B: She was 96.
J: Wasn't she like a sex therapist?
S: She was a sex therapist. So she was an early science communicator, you know, somebody communicating in her area of expertise and making it acceptable to talk about sex therapy on television.
B: It's even more taboo than it still is in this country.
E: Definitely trailblazing there. No doubt about it.
S: Do you guys know who George Joseph Kresge Jr. was?
J: No.
S: Goes by a stage name. Give you a hint.
B: George Jacob Jingleheimer?
S: Nope. Kresge went as the amazing Kresgen. He was a mentalist. I saw him in, I saw him in his act live. And he was one of the mentalists that pretended to be actually psychic. Which I did not like about his style. But he was probably the most famous of that crop of skeptic. You know, really had a little bit before, I think, our time. But, you know, but he was huge. Absolutely huge.
E: What was his age, Steve?
S: He was really old.
E: I mean, he had to be well into his 90s.
S: Yeah, I think he was in his 90s.
IC: 98.
E: Oh, wow.
S: And then some scientists that I'd love to like to mention. So do you guys know who Peter Higgs?
B: Yeah, Higgs boson, baby.
S: Higgs boson, Nobel winning physicist. You know, famously predicted the Higgs boson.
B: The god particle, if you will.
S: If you will.
C: The goddamn particle.
S: Goddamn particle.
E: Yeah, the godless particle.
C: Goddamn elusive, that's why.
S: A few other ones that caught my attention that I want to mention. You guys could add anybody if you have anyone on your own list. Ed Stone. Ed Stone, anyone? Director Jet Propulsion Laboratory. William Anders. This is really obscure. If anybody knows this, William Anders. He's an astronaut. Took perhaps the most famous photograph of any astronaut.
B: Oh, the Earth from the moon?
S: Earthrise. He took the quote, unquote, Earthrise photo. Yeah, that really became central to NASA's promoting the whole Apollo moon mission. This is before Apollo 11, you know?
IC: Yeah, but Steve, how come there's no stars or sun in that photo?
S: Yeah, don't get me started. Philip Zimbardo.
E: Nope, don't know that.
S: Ran the Stanford Prison Experiment, which is an iconic psychological experiment.
B: Oh, jeez.
S: Maxine Singer, geneticist who shaped the rules for genetic engineering. Warren Washington, climate scientist who was like the real trailblazer in making climate models, like predicting the future of climate through climate modeling. He was also one of the first African-American climate scientists, so he's a trailblazer in that respect as well. So those are the ones that caught my eye. I don't know if there's anyone, any of you guys have any on your list other than that to mention, or if this was even on the list of people of information for our listeners to give in.
B: I got a few here. You mentioned Star Wars, Steve, so I'm a little surprised you missed. I mean, not Star Wars proper, but Carl Weathers.
S: Oh, yeah, Carl Weathers.
IC: Oh, my God.
B: Carl Weathers, we lost him, that hurt. Donald Sutherland. And Tony Todd, Klingon and zombie fighter. Tony Todd is great. And yeah, horror.
E: Horror, yeah, horror movie genre.
B: Candyman. So...
E: Don't say it three times.
IC: Oh, God, that movie scared me. I still can't think of it, really.
S: All right, guys, you know what time it is?
B: Yes, let's do it.
S: Let's do it. Let's go on with our final science or fiction of the year.
Science or Fiction (1:16:50)
Theme: Science News 2024
Item #1: Scientists have discovered the first eukaryote that can directly fix nitrogen from the air, with an organelle called a nitroplast.[1]
Item #2: A study found a significantly increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease among taxi and ambulance drivers, providing a possible clue to an important risk factor associated with driving.[2]
Item #3: Despite the fact that the surrounding stones of Stonehenge came from Wales, researchers found that the six-metric-ton central Altar Stone came from Scotland, at least 750 km away.[3]
| Answer | Item |
|---|---|
| Fiction | A study found a significantly increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease among taxi and ambulance drivers, providing a possible clue to an important risk factor associated with driving. |
| Science | Scientists have discovered the first eukaryote that can directly fix nitrogen from the air, with an organelle called a nitroplast. |
| Science | Despite the fact that the surrounding stones of Stonehenge came from Wales, researchers found that the six-metric-ton central Altar Stone came from Scotland, at least 750 km away. |
| Host | Result |
|---|---|
| Steve | sweep |
| Rogue | Guess |
|---|
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake, nd then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. Before we get to the final science or fiction of the year, we're going to go over some science or fiction stats. So Cody Wolf was kind enough to send us in the science or fiction stats for the year. And here they are. We're going to go right to just the Rogues record. So at the bottom of the list was Jay at 55% correct.
E: Now, 55% is the floor. That's pretty darn good.
S: That's pretty good. I am taking it too easy on you guys is what that means.
E: I think that's...
B: Cut the crap.
S: I think that's your takeaway here, Steve.
C: Or maybe we've gotten better.
S: Well, I have to get harder as you get better. That's what I'm saying.
E: Or you have to increase it to one out of four.
C: Don't give him any ideas.
S: Maybe. That's more work for me though, so probably not.
C: Yeah, probably not.
S: Next is Bob at 59.57%. We could round that up to 60% for Bob.
B: Yeah, you better round that up.
E: That's a D minus, Bob. Well done.
S: And then Evan at 63%.
E: Oh my gosh. I don't know what to say.
'S: And then Cara, I think you had your best year ever, 76% for Cara.
E: Oh, Cara. Cara has unlocked this.
J: Yeah, you did so well this year. Cara was ridiculous.
S: It was uncanny.
E: You have the cheat codes.
C: Mind melding.
S: The number of times you were right for the wrong reason. You're like, I don't know. I don't know. I want three. Yeah, and you're like... Why did you pick this.
B: Your instincts are so good. It's crazy.
E: The one with the dinosaur, fiction.
S: I haven't cracked you yet, Cara. I've cracked Bob. Bob's easy. Because if it's surprising to me, it'll be surprising to Bob.
C: I do have that advantage, right? Of being the person who has spent the least amount of time with you.
S: Yeah, yeah.
E: Yes, you don't have...
B: Yeah, he's cracked me, you bastard. I should just Costanza it. That's what I got to do at this point.
C: I want to compare our records to previous records, see if we're getting better, worse, if it kind of ebbs and flows.
E: It sounds like we're all right.
S: This is definitely the best year. Yeah, you guys have to do that. So solo wins. Cara had three solo wins. Evan, you had one solo win. And Andrea and George each had one solo win.
C: Oh, that's awesome.
S: Yeah.
C: Oh, their records are probably way better than ours.
S: Yeah, but they...
C: It's probably 100% or something.
S: They only won a few times. I've had three sweeps. I swept you guys three times. You guys have swept me eight times. So you guys have swept me more than I have swept you. OK, but we have one more to add to the statistics.
E: Cara has the most to lose, statistically speaking.
S: She complains and then she gets it right.
E: She'll drop to 73% if you get this wrong.
C: I may be tired tonight.
S: The theme is the science news of 2024. But these are not items that I've done previously. These are just three items that we never talked about this year.
C: OK.
S: OK? Ian, have you played this your first one for this year?
IC: Yeah, because I'm usually only on once a year, so...
S: And I had no... I have zero out of zero because I didn't skip any...
E: That's unusual.
S: I know, I didn't skip any weeks this year.
IC: That's right.
E: We'll have to fix that for 2025.
S: You guys should at least do like one guest science fiction a year.
E: We used to do that with the live shows.
IC: Yeah, we do live shows.
S: All right. We'll think about that for next year. All right. Here they are. Item number one. Scientists have discovered the first eukaryote that can directly fix nitrogen from the air with an organelle called a nitroplast. Item number two. A study found a significantly increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease among taxi and ambulance drivers, providing a possible clue to an important risk factor associated with driving. And item number three. Despite the fact that the surrounding stones of Stonehenge came from Wales, researchers found that the six metric ton central altar stone came from Scotland, at least 750 kilometers away. We are going to do reverse order. So Cara, you're going to go first.
C: Okay, got to get through these. So first eukaryote that can directly fix nitrogen from the air with an organelle called a nitroplast. I think the way that reads implies that prokaryotes have already been doing this. And if prokaryotes can do it, a eukaryote could do it because a eukaryote could have endosymbiosis. So yeah, I could see there being one organism out there that engulfed a prokaryote at some point and incorporated that. That doesn't bother me. A significantly increased risk of developing Alzheimer's among taxi and ambulance drivers, a possible clue to an important risk factor associated with driving. I don't get that one at all. What the? What would driving? If anything, it should be like protective people who are mapping the city all the time with their minds or I don't know. Or people who are just working older and you know, then you have that the opposite of what's it called? What's the bias called? The attrition bias? Like the death bias?
S: Survivor bias?
C: Yeah, survivor. God, why couldn't I come up with that word? That's disconcerting. I said I was tired.
E: It's been a long year.
C: It's been a very long year. And despite the fact that the surrounding stones of Stonehenge came from Wales, they found that the central altar stone came from Scotland. I buy it. I don't know. There's a lot of cool old stuff happening then in that part of the world. Maybe it had special significance. Maybe it was important to bring. I mean, it wasn't just like a random stone, right? It was the central altar stone. So yeah, that one seems more reasonable. The Alzheimer's one I do not get. Why would driving, unless it was like they think it's because of smog or something, but everybody drives. I bet you there are commuters that drive just as much as ambulance drivers. So yeah, I'm going to call BS. That one feels like the fiction.
S: Okay, Evan?
E: I agree. As soon as I heard this one, I have no idea. Why would there be an association between Alzheimer's disease and driving at all? Look, I don't claim to know anything about this disease or neurology, but it just does not make any sense to me. Whereas, as Cara said, the other two have some features each in them that seem unusual but reasonable. Whereas this Alzheimer's one is totally unreasonable. I have to go with Cara and say that's fiction.
S: Okay, Bob?
B: Yeah, it's hard to disagree with these guys. Eukaryote fixing nitrogen, that's just too cool to be false. And let's see, the Stonehenge one, yeah, I mean 750 kilometers, that's far. But it just doesn't seem to be as unbelievable as this Alzheimer's one. So I'll just join the crew and say that that's fiction as well.
S: Okay, Jay?
J: All right, I'm going to take the first one because nobody picked it.
IC: Oh.
S: The nitroplast one?
E: Contrarian.
C: Really? Nice. Put your nickel down.
S: All righty, and Ian?
IC: Well, the first one, I recognize that they're phonemes all put together in a unique order. I have no idea what any of that means. So thankfully, I listened to what all you said. Okay, cool. That seems science-y. The second one, I was, didn't Steve say something about Alzheimer's? It's like if you're touching brain matter, you could...
J: Yes, absolutely.
E: Or consuming it.
IC: What are they doing in that while they're driving? What are they snacking on?
E: Mmm, human jerks.
IC: But it does, after hearing, you know, is it because of the driving? That does seem weird. And then despite the fact that the whole Stonehenge thing, it's like, really? You're not just going to take a stone from where you got it? You got to go somewhere else and get a whole nother stone? It seems like a lot of work. But I guess there's not much to do back in the day. So why not take a trip to Scotland? Or just Wales for the other stones and then just Scotland for that one? I guess the driving one does makes the least amount of sense. Like, is that a good brain training activity? Maybe we don't have to sign up for all those websites. You just drive around a city all day. So I'll say that's fiction.
S: Okay, so you all agree with the third one. So we'll start there. Despite the fact that surrounding stones of Stonehenge came from Wales, researchers found that the six metric ton central altar stone came from Scotland, at least 750 kilometers away. You guys all think this one is science. And this one is science. This is science. So yeah, I came from the Orcadian Basin in Scotland all the way to southern England where Stonehenge is. Yeah, like that dragging a six metric ton stone 750 kilometers thousands of years ago was no...
IC: They didn't have nice local stones or something?
E: Yeah, why couldn't they find something?
IC: You know, artisanal stones in that area? Like what?
S: So the researchers, they were able to match like the grain of the stone to that specific quarry or location. And then they also examined other possible sources of that same type of stone and found that they didn't match. So they didn't just test their hypothesis. They actually tried to disprove it, which is good. They looked at other things. And so yeah, that's, you know, again, nothing's 100%, but that matches best with the location in Scotland. They also think that the, you know, Stonehenge wasn't built all at once. This was probably a later revision of Stonehenge, right? So the same people who dragged in the blue stone from Wales were not the same people who got this stone from Scotland. Does that make sense? This is sort of later. Yeah, let's put a big thing in here. Get this mystic stone from Scotland or whatever, whatever reason they thought that that stone was special enough to drag 750 kilometers. They did it.
IC: I want to know the people who organized the party to be like, let's go get a stone, guys.
S: Oh, I saw this really pretty stone. It's a little far away.
C: It's pretty heavy.
IC: Just keep going. You got this.
E: Okay, we have oxen and slaves to drive it around.
S: They probably did a lot of the, made up a lot of the distance at sea, though. They probably transported a big chunk of it by sea. But still, it's a lot of land you got to cross, you know, at either end.
E: That thing floats.
S: But the exact methods are not known that they use. So clearly, aliens did it.
E: Piloted by Bigfoot.
S: Piloted by Bigfoot, yep. All right, we'll go backwards. A study found a significantly increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease among taxi and ambulance drivers, providing a possible clue to an important risk factor associated with driving. Bob, Cara, Evan, and Ian think this one is the fiction. Jay, you think this one is science. So interestingly, right, it's just a risk factor associated with driving. It doesn't have to be driving itself.
C: Yeah, that's why I said maybe pollution.
S: It could be, or it might be something even less direct. Just it could be sitting for all that time. It could be other behaviors that they engage in because they're driving that many hours, you know, basically for their job.
IC: Eating brain, I'm telling you.
S: It could be the brain chips that they get.
C: All brain eating.
S: So this one is the fiction. Because Cara is exactly right. It was protective. And they think it's because of all the spatial reasoning they have to do.
C: That's awesome.
S: It is a brain game that they're playing every day. And again, we don't know for sure, but they looked at it.
C: Where did they do this study? Do you know? Was it like global or?
S: I don't know.
C: I ask because every time I've been in New York, the taxi drivers and, you know, pre Uber, whatever, things got weird with Uber. But when I when I moved to New York and I lived there, the taxi drivers blew my mind with how they knew how to get everywhere. But when I moved to L.A., I ordered a taxi to the airport and the taxi driver had to put it in his GPS because he didn't know how to get to the airport. And this was disconcerting to me.
IC: Yeah.
C: This is worrisome, to say the least.
S: So this was done by researchers at Mass General in Boston. It looked at 443 professions. And these were the two that popped out as having a protective effect.
C: Interesting.
IC: So what if you play a racing game or, I guess, a taxi driving game?
E: Simulator?
IC: Taxi simulator. Would that work?
E: If you did it every day for eight hours.
IC: Every day, eight hours a day. Well, streamer, some streamer.
C: True, but if you think about it, most driving games are more about the skill in, like, dodging obstacles or going really fast than they are in going to a place over and over and learning where it is.
IC: Except for Crazy Taxi.
S: I wonder, of the 443 professions it looked at, was podcaster among them. I'll have to dig into the data a little bit. This means that scientists have discovered the first eukaryote that directly fixed nitrogen from the air with an organelle called the nitroplast is science. Because again, Cara is correct. That nitroplast is an endosymbiont prokaryote. And the study was basically asking, and they knew this. But if it's a symbiont, then the eukaryote doesn't get credit for it, right? It's just in a symbiotic relationship with a prokaryote that's doing it. But if it's a organelle, the eukaryote does get credit for it. So the question was, has this prokaryotic symbiont co-evolved enough with its symbiont, which was a marine algae, that it's now considered one organism? And they said, yes, it's one organism. That is an organelle, not a symbiont. And they called it a nitroplast, making that algae the first eukaryote to be able to fix nitrogen directly from the air.
B: This was huge. And I assume nobody remembered that I actually talked about it. I did a news item. This is my news item in May.
C: I'm so sorry Bob.
E: Yes, as I was doing my research, this did ring familiar.
B: I'm glad one person remembered.
S: Yeah. No, it was cool. That was a cool item. So we'll adjust those stats. I'm not going to do the math right now. But good job, everyone.
B: I'm hoping it got me right to 60.
IC: There you go.
B: I was damn close.
Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:31:42)
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
– ― T.S. Eliot, (description of author)
S: Evan, give us a quote.
E: "For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." T.S. Eliot, poet.
S: Very poetic.
E: Very poetic.
S: Appropriately so.
E: Yeah, for the end of the year. It's not exactly science related, but that's OK. It's my way of wishing everyone a good end of the year and a happy holidays. And we're so looking forward to 2025. I hope it gets better.
S: I tend to prefer even-numbered years over odd-numbered years. But I make an exception for years ending with five. They're OK, because they're divisible into 10. So 2025, it's a quarter of a century. Quarter of the 20th century is gone, depending on how you count.
C: It's so weird.
B: Wow.
E: Oh my gosh, stop. No.
S: It is weird, right? 2025, it's the future. It's like, it's crazy.
IC: We're living in the 20s.
S: I know.
B: A little bit more dystopian than I hoped.
S: When you think about 20 years ago, in 2025, we will celebrate completing our 20th year. And this is our 20th year-end review. And think about when we started and then imagining the future we imagine. Like, I would love to go back and interview ourselves from 2005 about what we thought 2025 would be like. And I bet you we would get it horribly wrong.
B: Oh, yeah.
C: I bet we would sound like idiots.
S: Yeah.
C: Like absolute idiots.
J: I think me back then would be so much more positive about what reality actually is.
S: Mm-hmm. Like, the social media thing is going to be awesome.
E: Yeah. That's right.
B: Nanotech everywhere.
S: We could all be driving hydrogen fuel cell cars.
E: Maybe there'll be an iPhone someday. Yeah.
C: I was one year out of undergrad in 2005.
IC: Wow.
C: I was a completely different person.
IC: Mm-hmm.
C: Wow.
S: I wonder what we would have said. Like, do you think you'll still be podcasting in 20 years? I don't know what I would have said back then. Because we didn't know what podcasting was going to do.
E: We didn't know if the medium would survive. Right. The whole medium was just so new.
S: I probably would have said something along the lines of, I know I'll be still promoting skepticism. I don't know what form that will be taking.
B: Right, right.
E: And that's true...
IC: I'll be a TikTok star.
S: Yes.
E: And I think we can say that with some confidence. Because for 10 years prior to that, we had been running the local organization. So we had a little bit of momentum behind us in that regard. So you're right, Steve. We would be doing something if not a podcast.
B: Yeah.
E: We'd still be doing something.
B: I also think that if someone told us that all you guys are still going to be doing this in 2025, I think we would all conclude that, oh, then we must be rich. Oh, boy, we got that wrong.
E: I'm a quadrillionaire.
S: Well, it has been an awesome ride.
B: Oh, my God, yeah.
S: I love working with all you guys. This is always one of my favorite things to do all week. I always look forward to it.
B: What an adventure.
S: It's a lot of fun. It's been a massive adventure. We've met a ton of awesome people.
B: Oh, God.
IC: That's true.
B: You know, I'm privileged.
E: And, Cara, you're right at the top. Of the people we've met, you are at the top of that list.
S: Absolutely.
E: In all sincerity, it's been such a great honor to work with you in this capacity. You have to know this.
C: You know what one of the perks is of being the person who kind of came halfway through the journey?
S: What is it?
C: That I get to get that kind of flattery all the time. I get to be both somebody you met along the way and a core part of the team, which is really cool.
B: Yeah, right?
C: Thank you for that. That's so cool.
S: That's true, because I already knew Evan before the whole skeptical thing.
C: Exactly.
E: No, it's true, though. It's true.
S: But, Ian, we count you on that, too. I mean, I remember-
B: Oh, my God.
S: When Jay- No, seriously. I know Ian's the humble guy. There's not any attention paid to him. Blah, blah, blah.
E: Here's his picture.
S: It was like, oh, damn. We need a programmer to help us tweak the website or whatever. And Jay's like, oh, there's this guy who, he lives in Connecticut.
IC: He's emailing me.
S: He lives in Connecticut. And he's like, oh, he's in Connecticut. Oh, good enough. He's close.
E: That's right. He's hired. Don't you want to know his name? Nope.
IC: Does he know Microsoft Word? Eh, who cares?
J: Ian knocked on my door one day. You know what I mean? Like, that was it. Hey, what's up, man?
S: But what a find. Seriously, you have been such a huge boon to everything that we do. I mean, you have a massive skill set. And it's been fantastic working with you. So that was just really, really lucky on our part that we were able to-
E: You're so tolerant.
S: Bring you into our circle.
J: Ian, I don't know if you would say this about me. But I'll say this about you.
B: Good start.
J: In all the years that we've been working together, you and I have not had one second of tension or stress between us.
IC: Yeah, no, I don't think so.
S: Right? Because Ian's chill.
IC: I get that enough with family. Why am I going to do it here?
J: I know, but it's pretty remarkable. Because you and I work very well together. I think our personality is like, we just don't have any conflict. Like, it's just happy, fun, interesting. You know, we're very goal-oriented. And you're just one of the few people in my life that is zero stress.
IC: Yeah, but where are those 4080s, Jay, that you said you were going to order?
J: I know. The goddamn graphics cards.
IC: Graphics cards. Before, yeah.
E: We're still recording, guys.
IC: Yeah, I'm sorry. Anyway, well, if you want to see this camaraderie live, where could you see it in the 21st year of our SGU? At the NOTACON.
J: NOTACON 2025.
S: It's the next thing that's happening.
J: May 15th, 16th and 17th.
IC: That's right. May in glorious White Plains, New York.
E: But that really is our official 20-year celebration. I'm sure we're going to roll that into the entire week.
S: And something interesting is going to happen for the SGU in 2025, which we cannot talk about at the moment. But at some point soon, we'll be able to talk about it. But it'll be good and interesting. So stay tuned. And then we always like to just look back. Not just look back at the SGU of the previous year, but going forward, do we want to do anything different? We want to mix things up? There's this guy Scrappy Doo I thought we should bring on the show.
E: Or Oliver.
B: Oliver, yeah. Brady Bunch, baby.
E: That worked well.
S: We're going to do this special where Cara water skis over a shark cage.
J: Oh my god.
C: I'm so down.
J: Somebody said we jumped the shark about 12 years ago. Remember that, guys? S: 15 years ago. Screw that.
E: Same person who doesn't like puns.
C: Or massages her chocolate.
E: Or Olive Garden.
S: But seriously. It is a good time. It's a good milestone where you say, all right, is there anything we want to do differently to shake things up? Or what's working? Maybe what could be improved? Send us your feedback because this is a good time. We want to delete any segments, add any segments. We are still pursuing the SGU correspondent idea. We did get some great submissions. We're just collating them at this point in time. We want to give people enough time to send them in. But hopefully, we will start incorporating that in 2025. All right. Thanks again, guys, for a wonderful year and continuing to go on this little adventure with me. It's been a blast. Looking forward to another year of science and skepticism. Thanks to every one of our listeners out there. Everyone who's ever come to a live show to see us. Everyone who supports us as a patron. Thank you so much to the patron. You guys really, really make all this possible. Honestly, we don't tell you enough how much we appreciate your support. And thank you guys for joining me again this week.
C: Thanks, Steve.
B: Thanks, man.
IC: Thanks Steve.
E: Pleasure.
J: Happy holidays, everybody.
IC: Happy holidays.
S: Happy new year.
B: Happy crampus.
E: Go crampus, right?
S: Happy Festivus, all that stuff.
B: Saturnalia. You know.
S: And until next week and next year.
E: I knew that was coming.
Signoff
S: 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.
|
|
|