SGU Episode 1032

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SGU Episode 1032
April 19th 2025
A clever crow showcases its intelligence with a found treasure!
SGU 1031                      SGU 1033
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
"The ease with which we believe things that flatter us or confirm our prejudices should always be suspect."
— Christopher Hitchens
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, April 16th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

B: Hey everybody.

S: Cara Santa Maria.

B: Howdy.

S: Jane Novella Hey guys and the recently not doing taxes, Evan Bernstein.

E: Oh, so this is what? Sunlight.

S: Yeah, you forgot April 60th is one day after tax day, so now you get a little bit of a breather. Right now you still have like other stuff to do but.

E: Yeah, now we enter the second right, the extensions. It's fascinating because I become very immersed in the work. I mean just the the volume itself takes up all of my time. For example, I will get up at at and be out of the house at 7:00 in the morning every morning, if not earlier. And I in, in these later days leading up to April 15th, I'd be getting home at 2:00 in the morning, I kid you not, going right to sleep and then waking up and doing it again. And that's really how my last couple of weeks of the season was this year. So there is there is really not much else. It's it's amazing. I've actually made the podcast as often as I as I had because that's the only other thing I've been able to kind of squeeze in here. Haven't been doing which game first. I had to put that to the side for a little while, but I'm just coming out of the space now and it does take a little while to adjust. It's quite a feeling.

S: Yeah, it's hard maintaining a day job and doing the skeptical thing.

E: Just, you know, this seasonal work can be brutal. It can be. But I'm glad it's I'm glad it's over and very happy for April 16, one of my favorite days of.

S: The year and Kerry, you are in Hong Kong now.

C: Yeah, I'm still in Hong Kong. I was in Hong Kong last week and now I'm in Hong Kong until Monday and then I'm going to mainland China and then I'm going to Vietnam after that, so.

E: Have you been to Vietnam before?

C: No, Vietnam will be new. I've been to Hong Kong and mainland China. I was there seven years ago, actually, with some of the skeptic organizations out here doing some events, some skeptics in the pub, you know, getting to know people. And I made some kind of lifelong friends. So now I'm back. But it's been great. My friends are so kind. They've like taken off of work to hang out with me and show me the sites. Been doing a lot of big hikes, going to really beautiful beaches, kind of exploring the natural side of Hong Kong. So it's very cool, that juxtaposition between the intense, intense city, amazing food, really kind to people, lots to do.

S: Cara, we talk every now and then about the SGU going out to either Hong Kong or Japan or just somewhere in Asia, but it's hard to get a read on how big like the skeptical movement is out there. What's your experience with that?

C: You know, when I was here last time, it was strong. Strong and mighty, but small. But it's hard to know, especially because you know how many people listen to SGU but wouldn't consider themselves part of some sort of movement where they're going to skeptical meetups, for example. But they like the podcast and they would want to come see the show. Obviously Hong Kong is a massive melting pot and it's got a huge expat community as well. There's a very large English speaking portion of the region. And I think we could say the same thing for a lot of places throughout the world. Like, I think about the European skeptics, I think about the upcoming eclipse, you know, places where we could travel to because it does seem to be the case that we've done most of our shows domestically in the US or where do we go typically? Australia. Australia. English. Speaking. Countries, but not even primarily English. Yeah, but not even all of them. Literally just UK and Australia and Canada. Yeah, but what about South Africa? What about other parts of Europe you know?

S: There was like one time where somebody from the South African skeptics contacted me said, hey, can we bring the SGU down here? We could get 20 people to show up to a meeting and like.

C: Yeah, that's the issue, right? We need to know that we can get it. What? What are we looking at? 203 hundred 500?

E: Oh, hundreds. Yeah, should be, Yeah.

S: I mean, to get us to travel internationally, we'd like to see 2 to 300 people show up at at our event.

C: At least, yeah, yeah. Otherwise that makes it way.

S: Too expensive, yeah, but again, but I agree with you like probably like a skeptics in the pub may not be the full measure of who we would get to show up at a right an event.

C: And I think what folks might not realize is it's not just the five of us, it's also Ian, it's also all of the logistics that are involved in it and.

S: And George?

C: And George, of course, and maybe Brian or you know anybody else who might be involved, but most of us do have jobs. And so the thing that we have to realize too is that when we do an event like that and we, it's one thing to go like, oh, we're going on vacation. We can't take weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks off every single year. We have to be really strategic about how we travel and it's also work for us.

S: Right, I used almost all of my vacation time over the last 15 years, at least on SGU events.

C: Exactly, Yeah.

S: Very few like just straight up vacations, yeah.

C: Two or three events a year, that's it. That eats up all of our vacation time. And that's really, really hard if we are also paying out of pocket to travel and it, yeah, it just gets very expensive. So that's that's the hardest part of all of this is figuring out how to make it financially feasible because it's something we'd love to do.

S: Yeah, we love. We love traveling and meeting our listeners from around the world. We love holding events. It's great. But yeah, but we're kind of like right on that edge in terms of it being financially feasible.

C: Yeah.

S: So if you do want us to come to your part of the world having said all that, you know, then talk to us. But we also need to to know that, you know, there's enough people are going to want to come out and see us for sure. All right, well, let's get started with the news items.

Dumbest Thing of the Week: https://knewz.com/world/an-encounter-with-a-ufo-turned-russian-soldiers-into-stone-alleged-cia-report-contains-its-details/ (05:48)

• [url_from_show_notes None] 

S: Actually, Evan, you're going to start us off with the dumbest thing of the week.

E: I am going to, and for the sake of brevity, I'll spare everyone the song this time time, and I'll break it out next time. I'm going to put one or more of you on the spot, though, with a question to start this one. Cara. Name a story or a TV show or a movie or some other medium of fiction where a person was turned to stone.

C: You pick the person who doesn't watch fantasy. Wait, Medusa? Did Medusa turn people to stone? There you go, Bang. Thank you.

E: Very good Medusa. Yes, Perseus and the Medusa would look at people and turn them. To Stone very good. Bob, do you have one?

B: She took mine and I was gonna sit down and I was gonna say Sodom and Gomorrah, but that's a pillar of salt. That's not Steve. Yes, you can.

E: I'll, I'll. I will accept that though, because salt is sort of a form of mineral. Very good. Jay or Steve, you wanna one? Of like the gargoyles, I. Yes, but which? Which? Which cartoon series?

J: They're called gargoyles, yeah.

E: Cartoon series.

J: So they're the gargoyles turning into stone.

B: I could back Steve up on that. He's right.

E: Very cool, very cool.

J: Yeah, but I think somebody turned to stone in the original Star Trek series.

E: Oh, right, or or the Kelvin. What? The mineral cubes you mean?

J: Somebody turned to.

E: Stone Yeah, the D20 they turned. Into like a salty D20 Joe decahedron I believe, right? Oh boy. Well I mean look, you can I and those are great examples and I think we can all agree that people or live creatures being turned to stone is 100% pure fantasy. It is fiction, It is 100% implausible, a physical impossibility, no connection to reality whatsoever. But you are all incorrect because once again, thanks to the recent declassification and release to the public of all sorts of government information that was once kept secret by United States as agencies, our clandestine services, we not only have things like psychics looking for arks of the Covenant like I talked about two weeks ago, but we now know that the ability to turn living things into stone almost instantaneously is a fact. And not only is it a fact, but it's a power not of this world, because extraterrestrial beings and their amazing technology have the capability of turning people to stone. Thanks all to it. Yep, thanks all to a declassified CIA report brought to light, which in one there in which there was one such incident reported where Russian soldiers in the 1980s fought off a UFO and got turned to stone by the aliens that they were fighting.

C: What?

E: Joe Rogan, Yeah, No, no, Joe Rogan told us he shared the details of this 250 page report. Yep, that was allegedly written by the CIA. The original report was the original report was apparently provided initially the source of it, KGB agents late 1980s, and later covered by Ukrainian media. And the incident was also documented in a classified intelligence file in 1993, according to the Jerusalem Post. But obviously it has become brought to light again because of all the declassification that's been recently going on. I'll read you a couple of highlights directly from the report so you can hear it yourself. According to the Cage, this is the from this, this is the report. According to the KGB materials, a quite low flying spaceship in the shape of a saucer appeared above a military unit that was conducting routine training maneuvers. For unknown reasons, somebody unexpectedly launched the surface to air missile and hit the UFO. It fell to Earth not far away, and five short humanoids with large heads and large black eyes emerged from it. It stated in the testimonies by the two soldiers who remained alive that after freeing themselves from the debris, the aliens came close together and then merged into a single object that acquired A spherical shape. That object began to buzz and hiss sharply and then became brilliant white. In a few seconds, the spheres grew much bigger and exploded by flaring up with an extremely bright light. At that instant, 23 soldiers who had watched the phenomenon turned to stone. Only two soldiers in the shade were less exposed than they survived.

C: What?

E: OK, you're right. And then it goes on. The first of all, couple points here. First of all, Joe Rogan, all right. Second of all, second point, Soviet KGB. And 3rd point, perhaps most important, a report that said something happened. Therefore it is true. This reads like a children's book at best, and it's not even that good of a children's book, frankly. All you have to do is go to prior works of fiction. And, you know, forgive me, I'm not attacking religion here, but the the Bible, for example, is filled to the brim with stories about metamorphosis, polymorphine and Bob's favorite transmogrification. Of course, you know, you mentioned Lot's wife, pillar of salt turned it. But there are so many examples of things like this. And, and look, throughout history, these kinds of stories have been told. And but here's what Joe Rogan said, because I listened to his this section of his podcast, he said it's really interesting what's going on with these disclosures. And it's hard to know what's true and what's not true. No, Joe Rogan, it's actually not hard at all. And he then he goes on to reference like the Fleer video and the go fast video. These are those UFO videos from the that captured by the pilots, the Navy pilots as as the best evidence of inexplicable UFO events. And of course those have been pretty thoroughly debunked by Mick West and others. So there you go, you have the Joe Rogan crowd, the UFOUAP crowd all going Yep, this is real because of a made-up Soviet era throwback in what was likely deliberately fabricated nonsense that wound up eventually in ACIA report. And there you have it. That is your dumbest thing of the week. How bad is that? I mean that. I mean, really.

C: That they reported it on Fox News.

E: That's pretty bad.

S: All right.

C: Thanks, Evan.

News Items

Where Did Water Come From (11:41)

• Scientists find evidence that overturns theories of the origin of water on Earth 

E: Jay, where did Earth's water come from?

J: Well, before we get into that, Steve, the faucet guys, I'm going to ask you a question. I want you to be honest. Do you drink enough water?

C: I try to.

E: Who gets to determine what enough is?

J: I will determine that.

E: I don't drink 88 oz glasses. That's BS. That's a bit. That's a myth, yeah.

J: Yeah, well, OK, since that was a hard question, I don't know if you guys are even going to be able to come close to answering this one, but do you know where the Earth's water came from? Or at least what the you know the current theories are.

E: Comets. Is 1 yes comets delivered in the early what proto earth during the bombardment?

J: Heavy yeah, there's, there's four common theories that you'll hear. You know that one of them. Yeah. Comets, like icy comets that bombarded the Earth. This is about 4 billion years ago. Solar nebula capture, right. Hydrogen from the solar nebula was captured, captured by the OR hydrogen by the early Earth and that combined with oxygen to form water and then asteroids. People, you know, the scientists have theorized that, you know, water rich asteroids collided with the early Earth and you know, we that's where a lot of water came from. Now the one I always thought it was, was the concept of outgassing from Earth's interior. And I think I got this from going to Walt Disney World when we were when we were young, a lot younger. And they I watched some video and it it stuck with me.

E: Oh yeah, it's a wet world after all.

J: But there has been some new research that may very well change what scientists around the world think the real source of water was. So like I was saying, you know, for many decades scientists thought that the water that simply just wasn't there when our planet formed, right? The belief was that water was like you said, you guys was delivered by what water rich asteroids or comets during like the first 100 to 200 million years after the Earth formed. And you know, that made sense. You know, there it does make sense. It it, it's kind of like a happy happenstance, right? It wasn't like a plan thing, Of course, like, you know, these these asteroids or, and or comets had to, you know, had to hit the earth in order for the earth to have water going under that theory. But the early solar system was dry and it was violent, right? It was very hot. It was it was a not a nice place to be. And this was particularly true in the inner region where the Earth took shape, you know, the the inner planets and the the minerals making up Earth's early building blocks appeared to be bone dry After, you know, doing the best research that we can on, on, you know, any, any, anything that we can find that would shed some light on what it was like back then. So the prevailing equation for our oceans was that their water came from collisions with icy comets and water rich asteroids that came from the outer solar system. But there's a big but. So there's a new study published in the journal Icarus, and it came to a different conclusion and it's really compelling. The study was led by a research team at the University of Oxford. And the study focused on a mineral. It's called enstatite chondrites. Have you guys heard of this? Heard.

E: Of Chondrites. Chondrites are in meteorites.

J: Yeah. So this is a particular it's a silicate mineral and the research focused on a meteorite called L AR1225 two again, why don't they give them cooler names? I don't know. So it this this meteorite was chemically similar to the material that built Earth about four point 4.5 billion years ago. They used a really powerful technique called sulfur X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Cara.

C: Spectroscopy.

J: Thank you and.

E: I get that wrong too. Jim, I'm not. Even know it. Twists me.

J: You know, if you watch the live stream last Wednesday, but today's Wednesday and I'm sick and I I just, my mouth is not getting around words right now, so.

C: That's fair. That one's tough too, because mix it up with spectrometer spectroscopy, Yeah, it's all.

J: They examined using this new machine they, they were able to examine on a microscopic level what is actually going on in this mineral. So what they found was very surprising to the researchers. The meteorite contained a large amount of hydrogen and it wasn't from Earth's contamination. The hydrogen was chemically bonded to sulfur, meaning it was part of the meteorites original composition. Why is this significant? Well, this directly challenges the long standing assumption that the that mineral ends to tight Krondai, right, or Klondike bar, right? That's I've read. So this discovery directly challenges the long standing assumption that the mineral was too dry to supply any hydrogen and therefore water to the early Earth. So past studies have only found tiny amounts of hydrogen in these rocks, but they hadn't looked in the right places or in the right form. And that that's a mind Bender right there. They look for hydrogen, they didn't find it, but with this new tool they found it. The new research shows that most of the hydrogen is stored as hydrogen sulfide and this is in the meteorites fine grained matrix which is a part of the rock that has completely been ignored. That region turned out to contain almost 10 times more hydrogen than other parts of the meteorite. So the implications of this are are astounding. Earth's primary building material, which is that mineral contained, you know, they had no idea that it contained that much hydrogen from the start. And it dramatically changes our understanding of the origins of Earth's water or potentially where the origin was from. So in this model, water isn't of, it is not like a, you know, a galactic lucky afterthought. It was a predictable outcome of the materials and the conditions at the time our planet formed, which is huge. That's a really impressive find that they did. And it's a it's a game changer. And the study also offers a likely explanation for how the hydrogen got into the rock in the 1st place. The researchers found that areas rich in hydrogen were also full of pyrotite, which is a mineral made of iron and sulfur. These grains probably formed when hydrogen gas from the early solar system reacted with iron sulfide in a cloud of sulfur rich dust. That reaction created hydrogen sulfide, and that's a gas which then mixed into nearby molten rock as the molten material cooled quickly into glass. Right, That's what they're calling it. The hydrogen was sealed inside. So in other words, the hydrogen became part of the rock when it first formed. It wasn't added later by any outside sources.

C: Yeah, these these chondrites, right. When we think about chondrites, do you guys collect meteorites at all?

J: Yeah.

C: Anybody.

J: Yeah, I wish.

C: So I have like a bowl of them.

J: You do?

C: Yeah Chondrites are the non metallic like non.

J: Like nodules, non. Ferrous.

C: Yeah, Yeah. They're the ones that look non ferrous, like rocks that are kind of variegated because the way that they formed was in the early solar system, right? They were, they were primitive asteroids. And they have all these little speckles on them because the idea is that all that dust and those little grains all, like, coalesced and they haven't changed since then.

E: Yep.

C: Like, they're cool. Like, these are billions of years old.

E: You have them.

C: Yeah, of course. I.

S: Mean, of course.

C: You don't collect your own? Yeah, I assume Steve had a little collection too. Maybe not I.

S: Have a couple that I bought. I don't have any that I found.

J: I've been given a couple but.

C: Yeah, yeah.

J: So this process, Cara, it would have occurred in the inner solar system. And again, like I was saying, it's it was hot. It was it was a sulfur rich environment. And this is where Earth and probably Mars and Venus formed. And if that's the case, then it's not just Earth that could have started that wet the mechanism, you know, they're saying it could apply to any planet that formed from similar material under similar conditions, which are largely the inner planets. And the significance of this work lies in what it removes from the equation, which is chance. Remember, I was saying like, you know, we're just lucky that these water rich comets and asteroids came to Earth. You know, it's nothing it the asteroid delivery hypothesis depends on a series of, you know, super low probability events. But if the hydrogen, and you know of course what I'm saying that by extension I also mean water if that was inherent. To Earth's formation, then the presence of oceans becomes much, much less surprising and water and the potential for it to, you know, create life and everything may be a default condition for rocky planets that are formed in these right zones and not by some crazy cut, you know, cosmic accident. That is the the previous prevailing theory. So I think that is, you know, it's pretty profound. You know, of course there's going to be other studies and they're going to, you know, further try to find more evidence and try to see if this holds up to scrutiny. But the bottom line is it was a major, major find, major, significant perspective on where water likely came from.

S: Yeah, of course, this doesn't mean that there weren't comments or, you know, later meteorites that brought more water to the Earth, but it's just a matter of where the bulk of it came from.

J: Yeah, definitely. Sure. I mean, you know, one theory, Steve, is that it's all of these things. It's.

S: All of these things, yeah, it's all about a proportion.

J: You know what I wanted to find out and I could not find anything and I went to the original study was how much could they have calculated? Like, it seems that there's implying that there would have been enough hydrogen to make this amount of water that's on the planet. Yeah, they didn't confirm or deny that, but I think that's pretty implied in the study.

S: All right, Thanks, Jay.

EPA Data on Emissions (21:24)

• EPA Plans to Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Most Polluters 

S: Cara.

C: Yeah.

S: So tell me, how much emissions is the United States putting out every year like of? Greenhouse.

C: Nobody knows, Steve, nobody knows. How is 1 to know the answer to this question except by a federal regulation Title 40 from the Environmental Protection Agency, especially Part 98, the GH GRP, which is let me read right here.

E: Greenhouse.

C: Yep, good job. More anymore greenhouse, greenhouse gas reporting program, yeah, super important codified by Congress that required, yeah, about 8000 facilities every year to report their emissions to the EPA, right. So we're talking a lot of data here and specifically emissions that are direct, so reported at the individual facility level, but also upstream suppliers. GHGRP did not include historically emissions from agriculture or lower emitting sources like direct emissions that had annual emissions of less than 25,000 metric tons of CO2 or sinks of greenhouse gases. But any other, what would you call it, like facility, I guess they use that term a lot. Any other individual facility or upstream facility that produced methane or other climate warming gases was required by law, has been required by law to report their annual emissions. And guess what's going to happen to that?

US#03: Going to go bye bye.

C: Goodbye, goodbye. So yeah, unfortunately Trump has plans to stop collecting that greenhouse guest data. And we know this basically from from some reporting by Pro Publica, which has been reposted here in Undark 2 of Trump's officials, Tardif and Sabo. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. So political appointee Abigail Tardif, who is now the principal deputy assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, recently, as of, I think just a couple days ago, about a week ago now, instructed EPA staff to draft up a rule that would eliminate reporting requirements for 40 of the 41 sectors of that federal regulation that are now required to submit that data. She has not made any further comment on that. And then another political appointee, Aaron Sabo, he is awaiting a confirmation as assistant administrator to the EPA. He also has been directed to effect change in this area. Neither of them have obviously responded to comment from reporters. Both Tardif and Sabo previously worked as lobbyists. Sabo or Sabo represented the American Chemistry Council and Duke Energy and a bunch of different companies and trade groups, and Tardif worked for Marathon Petroleum and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association. So these are two individuals basically now working with or at EPA directing policy about emissions reporting who previously were lobbyists for for energy sector jobs. So let's talk about what this means. You know, we know that we have to design policy around what's happening to our climate. And it's very, very difficult to write policy if we don't have data, right? Like how, how do we affect change when it comes to climate emissions if we don't know what those climate emissions are? Does that make sense?

E: Makes per makes.

C: Per Yeah, I mean, we're talking, again, oil refineries, power plants, coal mines, petrochemical manufacturers, cement, glass, iron, steel manufacturers. And we're talking about carbon dioxide, methane, all these other different greenhouse gases. Oh, not agriculture. Agriculture is not included.

E: In this not agriculture.

C: Not in this this specific legislation.

E: Interesting. OK.

C: Yeah, so obviously not every bill can do everything. This specific legislation is not targeted towards agriculture, the greenhouse gas reporting program. Edward Maybach, who is a professor at George Mason University, said in response to this decision to obviously stop collecting all of this vital information. He said, quote, it would be a bit like unplugging the equipment that monitors the vital signs of a patient. That is critically I'll, how in the world can we possibly manage this incredible threat to America's well-being and humanity's well-being if we're not actually monitoring what we're doing to exacerbate the problem? Another important quote here is by Rachel Cletus, who is a senior policy director with the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She said the bottom line is this is a giveaway to emitters. Just letting them off the hook entirely, not tracking the data, does not make the climate crisis any less real. This is just putting our heads in the sand. It's very disconcerting. Sounds about right, yeah. We don't know where we're going to net out with this, obviously, because these policy changes are happening really, really fast and loose. They're happening very often through executive action and not through legislative action. And there's still a lot of questions. We are not legal scholars here on the SGU. I am definitely not a legal scholar. There's still a lot of question about whether the ordering and then the implementation of these policy changes, which were legislative policies, is even legal to do right at an executive level. So we don't know how this will net out, but we do know that we have already started to see some changes from within the agency. So like last month, they announced that they were reconsidering the program. EPA on March 12th sent out this kind of like suite of bulletins celebrated. They, they, they said that, quote, it was the most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history. You can read it right there on the EPA website where Administrator Zeldin talks about all these things that they call, quote, historic actions to power the Great American comeback. So they, you know, they bullet point them in there. Basically, the argument here is that this reporting program is burdensome and it costs American businesses and manufacturing, you know, millions of dollars. I love how they hide under that like it hurts small businesses and the ability to achieve the American dream. We're talking about like the largest polluters across the country. It's 85 to 90% of all greenhouse gases which are reported by this program, 85 to 90%. And we're just not going to have access to that data. And The thing is, it's that's really devastating because the data itself helps these companies function. It, it, it helps American businesses. They don't have to do their own, you know, individual data collection and forecasting because they've access to federal data that's mandated that everybody can use unfettered because our tax dollars pay for it. But now that's, you know, not going to be the case. And, and here's another quote, which I think is an important one, by Andrew Light. He was the assistant secretary of energy for international affairs during the BITE administration. He said we will not get to the kinds of temperature stabilization needed to protect Americans against the worst climate impacts unless we get the cooperation of developing countries. If the United States won't even measure and report our own emissions, how in the world can we expect China, India, Indonesia and other major growing developing countries to do the same? So we know that when Trump first took office, the portal where companies could share their data was closed by the Trump administration and stayed closed for several weeks. So already admissions reporting has been really, really delayed. And then you know, through these series of bulletins, the fate of this program is not looking good. Even if these programs aren't shuttered or if they are shuttered, let's say via executive action, but then brought back through legislative, I guess saving the damage is already done, right? That move fast and break things attitude actually gets what they want to get accomplished, even if later on it has to be reinstated because when the data are lost, the data are lost it's.

E: Just faster to tear things down than it is to.

C: Way easier. Exactly. And to make it harder to report and to close down a portal, and now you can't log in and now you can't do your job. So maybe even if everything gets back online in six months or, hell, four years, you know, who knows? What do we do about that massive hiccup where the whole machine, you know, ground to a halt? Yeah.

S: This seems to be a pattern though of yeah, essentially let's just stop collecting information, you know, or whatever in many.

C: Countries. Maybe it won't be real.

S: Let's just not report information they, you know, like just, well, let's just not report COVID cases. This is like a pattern. This is not an isolated incident.

B: While we're at it, let's delete a lot of information too.

C: Yeah, totally. Yeah, Well, let's rewrite history.

B: You.

S: Know absolutely yeah, this is this is like just control the information limited. Let's not research the effects of gun violence, you know, or the effectiveness of gun safety regulation. Let's just not study it. Let's just not collect the data. Let's just not report the data. The CDC we're not going to report measles numbers anymore. Why yeah why alarm people It's yeah this is a very disturbing pattern because they say you know information it you know facts data is the beginning, right. This is like this is a crucial thing that feeds into our ability to have science based policy, science based discussion.

C: 100% that's the point, and it goes far beyond partisan politics. This regulation to report this climate data was a congressional regulation. This is law. This is clearly, there may have been people in the past, you know, on certain sides of the aisle who pushed back. But this past this is bipartisan policy, and it's held for quite some time. This new idea of just not getting any information goes far beyond partisan politics. It's heartbreaking to see so much hard work, so much collective strategy, so much science being just dismantled in front of our eyes.

S: Yeah, well, it's yeah. If there's no objective information, then you can create whatever political narrative you wish.

C: Right. And that's.

S: Constitutes for reality.

C: Exactly. But that has never ever been the policy of the left or the right in this country. It's it's never been. Let's just not have information and let's fill it with vacuum.

S: Not like that.

C: That's what's so heartbreaking. Not like this. Yeah, exactly. That's what's so heartbreaking.

S: Terrible. And again, I know we're trying awfully hard not to be like partisan or political on this show, but this is about data. This is about science, you know, Absolutely. You're just trying to win the whole global warming thing by Fiat, by just like, oh, we're just not going to track data. So right, that's what that's what.

C: And it's not specific even to global warming. That's the really scary thing. Yeah, this isn't political per SE. I mean, it is political, but it's not partisan.

S: Yeah, it's not. It's not a typical left, right. Yeah, exactly. Conservative, liberal issue. This is a democracy issue. Really.

C: Yeah.

Is Your Red My Red (32:55)

• Is my green your green? 

S: All right, let's move on. So let me ask you guys a question. This is this is a totally a late night college dorm room Stoner type of question.

J: OK, go ahead.

S: Dude is my red your red right?

C: I hate. This question.

S: We've talked about this I. Know we have talked about this.

E: We did. Is this the blue dress? No. The gold dress, No.

C: But there is a difference between subjective downstream interpretation. But no that there are wavelengths of light that we all observe similarly because we have the same architecture. Whether you interpret red as having a specific feeling or or it feels different to you or, I don't know even like the way that you talk about red is different, but how you perceive. But the red that you see is the same red that I see.

S: Yeah. But the it's, it's ultimately an unanswerable question because we're talking about a fully subjective experience.

C: Quality, yeah, but I think we often forget that first half of it.

E: But we don't. But we have deficits too, and that varies from. That's true.

C: Yeah, but those are. But those are observable. Those are demonstrable. We understand exactly how those deficits work.

S: So there, well there are certainly hardcore deficits like various types of color blindness that can be objectively determined. I have a red, green I think diffusion you call it color blindness.

C: Yeah, it's red, green or red, green, yellow. Like there's a very specific type.

S: Like I can't see certain numbers in those little boxes of bubbles. You know what circles? I just can't see the number.

E: Oh yeah, so.

C: You can't determine sometimes the difference between.

S: We're not talking about that. They're just talking about is your experience of a color the same as you know, or at least similar to? There's probably everyone will see, even I see different shades at different times depending on conditions and whatever, you know, even if I'm sleep deprived, things might look a little bit different to me or whatever. But basically red always looks red, you know, to me my subjective experience of it. And, and I have no way of knowing what your subjective experience of it is. But scientists are interested in that question and trying to figure out is there any way that we could infer what the probable answer is? There's, you know, one way that we can that we can argue it is to say, as you were saying, Cara, we all have the same brains. We have mammalian brains, we have human brains. And there's no reason to think that anyone's experience of something as fundamental as just color would be fundamentally different than anyone else. S Yeah. Also another inference is, but this is this is, again, not rock solid, but there's generally agreement about like, yeah, blue is a common color and red is an exciting color. You know, like there's certain emotions that go along with it. But you could argue that's completely learned, and it's also complete and association. Experience. Yeah, yeah, just association. All right. So this gets us to this. What this study where this is the approach that they took and that's why I'm fascinated in like how they approach the question, not so much like the data that came out of it, but what they did was they they created a network of color associations, right? That's the framework that they created. In other words, is red. Is this color right, showing that somebody read without labels. So they like they didn't communicate in labels just is this color more similar to this color over here or that color over there? So you would show them red, pink and green and and somebody might say, yeah, the red is closer to the pink than it is to the green. And they just keep doing that to build up this network of associations.

B: Wait, red is closer to pink than green? Wait a second. Never mind.

S: Yeah. Oh.

Voice-over: God no, Bob.

E: You had me for a third of us.

S: Now what did they use as a control?

E: A cat?

S: People who are color blind. People who are color blind. And they had them.

C: So it's a negative control. People can't tell the. Difference.

S: So they went through the same process. Well there's different kinds of color blind. It's not like people just seeing in black and white. They just.

C: Have no it's it's red. Green is the most. Common, yeah.

S: So they have, they have limited, they have a limited color palette. So the question the, the, the hypothesis was that if we see colors the same, then neurotypical people in terms of their color vision would all build the same network of color relationships. But people who are color blind would build a different network of color relationships. That makes sense. And that's what they found. That's what they found. So again, this is not ironclad rock solid, but it is just like, this is what we would predict if this thing that we think is probably true were true, and that's what they found. So it. Yeah. So yeah, so. And that kind of makes sense, you know, that if we're seeing colors the same way, then we would think, yeah, lavender is more like purple than it is like green or whatever. Like you would, you would make those associations would be the same as well, even when they're discrete frequencies, right? They are different frequencies. They are different mixtures of your of your cones, right. So you could, if people saw colors differently, you could experience completely different relationships among those colors too. You don't have to, but you could. So at least this is consistent with the conclusion that people see color the same way, all right.

B: That's encouraging.

S: Yeah, it's a new little wrinkle in this sort of old again, kind of like college dorm room question that it's.

B: A good idea though, I like the way they approached it. Like you said, it was a cool. Idea.

S: Yeah, that was the point. All right, that was just a quick one for me this week.

B: Oh boy, holy.

Evolution of Complex Life (38:38)

• Origin of life: How a special group of single-celled organisms laid the foundation for complex cells 

S: Crap, Bob, tell us about the evolution of complex life.

B: What? You're done. I was. I was just settling in. What? You're done. I gotta like wait. I gotta.

S: Like I cede my, I cede my time to you, Bob. I yield my time.

B: Yeah, I might need it. OK. Alright. Hi guys, this was fun. The iconic tree of life may be changing near its root. A recent discovery could force the top most domains of all life bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya to reduce down to just two domains. Maybe which domains survive intact and and what did they know? What did they discover? This is from the journal Cell. The name of the study is Microtubules in Asgard. Archaea settle in people and there will be a quiz. Pay attention. I have been. I've been especially interested in in this iconic tree of life and microorganisms ever since I remember, ever since I read Stephen Jay Gould's book Full House, the spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin. Wonderful book, especially when narrated by Ephraim Zimbalist Junior. What a wonderful voice that guy has. No spoilers please. Yeah, so he described there and initially he starts with the, he describes the Old Five Kingdom classification of life. Remember this guy's plants that was like fungi, fungi protists and Monera. I remember those guys. Now the plants, animals and fungi. We we know those Protista protists are a group of, of all the eukaryotes that are not fungi, animals or plants. So protozoans, slime molds, stuff like that. Then Monera. It's kind of a weird, I haven't heard that word in a while, but Monera was like a catch all category that that grouped single celled organisms, bacteria and Archaea together. Karyotic cells. So, so that's what that was. So many of us grew up with those classifications. And yes, we are slowly dying off. So they, they were the top dogs, right? All life on earth fit under one of those five kingdoms. Maybe not beautifully neatly, but they fit in there somewhere, to quote the Animatrix. And for a time it was good. And then microbiology? I just love. That damn all right and then microbiology happened this this elucidated the the hidden genetic relationships between organisms with unprecedented accuracy and we learned that 5 kingdoms just didn't cut it anymore they did not properly reflect Earth's evolutionary history and the diversity of life Yep just didn't cut it anymore they lied we needed well you know like the earth, you know gets a little bit less round as we that's more. About it.

E: That's right.

B: But we but we needed a broader classification. OK, so then Gould then described in his book how that forced the removal of the five kingdoms at the top and and they needed to be replaced with the three domains. These domains were bacteria, Archaea, and eukarya. Bacteria. We all know bacteria, right? They're our buddies. Bacteria, single celled organisms that have prokaryotic cells that have no nuclei, is one of the main differentiators between these cells and other cells, prokaryotic cells, bacteria. Then there was Archaea. These have prokaryotic cells as well. But there's also major biochemical differences and other interesting differences between the bacterial prokaryotic cells and the final domain, Eukarya. That's us. And other things and the rest. These organisms have eukaryotic cells that have a nucleus and other membrane organelles. OK, animals, plants, fungi, protists are in here. That's four. Think about that. That's four out of the five kingdoms that I just mentioned a minute ago in this one domain, four out of the five are like put in there because they belong in there. All multicellular life is in there. Protists, of course, are, are single celled, but all the rest are are basically multicellular. So we so we have 3 domains to rule them all. And for a time it was good. Now, has anyone ever fused Lord of the Rings and the matrix before? I don't remember ever hearing that so, but I doubt I'm the first. OK. And for a for a time it was good. So what's new now? All right, What's changed? Right. I'm obviously going to talk about some change here. So the researchers have been studying a recently found subgroup of Archaea with probably the best name ever. They are called Asgard Archaea. I just loved it. This.

E: Oh, here we go, Marvel.

B: The nanosecond I heard Asgard Archaea, I loved it. So that was basically one website described it as a super phylum of Archaea. Now they use that name, as you know, from North Norse mythology because they found it near a formation in the mid in a Mid-Atlantic Ridge called Loki's Castle. So of course you see the connection between Loki and Asgard. But when I first read Asgard Archaea, though, I didn't think about Norse mythology. My first thought was the cool aliens from Stargate the Asgard. I don't suppose any of you also thought of Stargate first? Cara, did you think of Stargate first when I said no Asgard Archaea? Probably not, but yeah, I'm weird that way, so let's see. So yeah, they were cool, but so tragic. All right, the new bit here for this news item has to do with the cytoskeleton. Do you guys, did you guys know that cells have a skeleton essentially sort of? Yes. Cyto cytoskeleton. That's the the framework of proteins in a cell that give it shape they and support and it it enables even movement. All three domains have cytoskeletons in their cells, but in bacteria and Archaea they are simple structures. Eukarya cells, on the other hand, have very complex cytoskeleton, including very specialized structures called microtubules. And these things help the cells organize internally. They help with division, with cell division, and they also help moving materials around inside the cell, kind of like a cellular conveyor belt or oh wait. Also a better a better analogy would be those bank drive through vacuum tube thingies. That maybe that's a better analogy. What do you even call those stupid things? Pneumatic tube on. Yes, pneumatic tubes. So these complex structures weren't supposed to exist in simpler organisms, just the eukaryotic cells, until they actually do. Though when they studied some of these Asgard Archaea, they found not only a more complex cytoskeleton in general, but they they also found microtubules as well. Now, they weren't quite as complex as eukaryotic cells, but these Archaean cells had microtubules that shouldn't have been there. They, they should not have been in there. They've never been found in there before and even in other Archaean cells, they, they never saw microtubules before. Now the researchers take away is that there, there appears to be less of a distinction between Archaea and Eukarya, which then of course suggests that perhaps the eukaryotic cytoskeleton evolved directly from Archaea ancestors. You got that. So you don't have these three domains branching out separately, but you have well, I'll, I'll continue. We won't get to that point. So if this is correct, then eukaryotes evolved from within Archaea and not separately from it. That's what I was trying to say, that the tree then doesn't branch cleanly into 3 domains anymore. If this is true, that that clean branching isn't valid anymore. Instead it looks like there's just two major branches, bacteria and Archaea, with a eukarya kind of like nested inside of Archaea. Maybe as some superphyllum. I'm not sure but it's but it's no longer it no longer would have its own domain. So then the next question is, is the cytoskeleton critical for the evolution of complex life? That's one of the big questions that they're going to be working on. Perhaps. Perhaps it is the researchers think that a complex cytoskeleton was clearly important for the evolution of eukaryotes. And get this, this one, this was really cool. Some Asgards have tentacle like appendages that are moved by the cytoskeleton, right? So that might help them actually grab or interact with their environment in complex ways. Professor Martin PIL Coffer at 8 at ETH Zurich, said this remarkable cytoskeleton was probably at the beginning of this development. It could have enabled Asgard Archaea to form appendages, thereby allowing them to interact with and then seize and engulf A bacterium. Now what bacterium do you think he was referring to? He was referring to bacterium being absorbed into the into the cell and becoming mitochondria. This is basically the beginning. I mean, mitochondria, you know, it's like taking a kind of a crappy car and throwing in like a jet engine. It's that that's why, you know, complex cell life took off. I mean, the mitochondria of these amazing powerhouses. I mean, basically evolution and Earth changed when that happened. So all right, so it's so who knows what they're going to find, but that this this, this cytoskeleton, this the fact that these cells have this complex cytoskeleton could could have meant that this complexity existed far, you know, far earlier than we then we thought. So in the meantime, though, until this happens, I think we should prepare for the possibility that we'll have two only two high level domains. So what do you guys think that they're going to do with this with the domain names?

J: They better not be a bunch of series of numbers and letters, that's for sure.

B: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, right, Jay. 4.3. 57 So what I think they're going to do is I think I think they're just going to be boring and it's going to be like, OK, it's the two top level domains now are bacteria and Archaea, because and Eukarya will just be kind of underneath Archaea and that'll be probably what they're going to do, right? Because that that makes sense. But I think they should. It does make sense. But I think they should fuse the Archaea designation with the Eukarya and call it Arcaria, but they'll never do that because that's that's way, way too interesting. So either way, though, either way, stay tuned for a potentially interesting minor tweak to our family tree. And who knows when that's going to happen, But it could could you know, if this, if this pans out, you know, the the two domains could go from three to two, you know, in a few years, who who knows if it's really going to happen, But this looks pretty looks pretty solid with this study that I read. So we'll see what happens.

S: And it's weird to think that we are Archaea, basically.

B: Yeah, but it is, yeah. I'd rather be. I'd rather be from Archaea though, than bacteria, really. Because Archaea. Oh yeah, I mean. They're cooler. Think about it, Archaea have most of the extremophiles. I mean, a lot of Archaea are extremophiles. Archaea, yeah, I think they're definitely the OG. They are so metabolically diverse. So many of them are are extremophiles that could survive crazy, crazy crap that I'd rather be descended from Archaea than a bacteria. I'll just.

C: Like didn't we used to call them archaebacteria?

B: Yeah, we used to think that they were basically. Yeah, like I said earlier, they were Monera, right? Like. Bacteria and Archaea, they were single cell, they were prokaryotic. They're they're so close, they've got to be basically the same thing. But once you know, and microbiology took off and they're like, holy crap, look at the biochemistry of this damn single cell. They, they deserve their own domain. They're not going anywhere.

S: All right, Thanks, Bob.

Crow Math Skills (49:51)

• A crow’s math skills include geometry : NPR 

S: All right, Evan, tell us about crows mad math skills.

E: Yes, I am going to do that to to prepare for this particular news item. Here's what I plugged in to ChatGPT. What was the monkey versus birds debate about on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast? You want to hear the answer when you can't do it? How great is this? The monkey versus birds debate on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast was a humorous, long running discussion among the show's hosts, particularly involving Perry Deangelis, who staunchly defended monkeys as superior to birds. This light hearted rivalry became a recurring theme on the podcast. In episode 53, Perry recounted a news story about a man caught smuggling animals through customs. When confronted, the man admitted, I have monkeys in my pants. The incident involved 2 loris monkeys surviving A transcontinental flight concealed in the man's underwear while birds of Paradise, while birds of paradise he was also smuggling perished during the journey. Perry used this story to argue that monkeys are tougher and more resilient than birds, humorously stating that surviving such condition proved monkeys superiority. The debate continued in subsequent episodes, with listeners contributing with their own arguments and anecdotes. For example, in episode 64, a listener corrected did a previous misclassification of Aloris, noting that it is a pro simian, not a monkey, adding a layer of scientific accuracy to the ongoing jest. This playful banter became a beloved inside joke among fans of the podcast, showcasing the host camaraderie and the show's blend of science with humor. That's what you get when you plug that in.

B: What the hell?

E: Isn't that cool that it like can pick out that little aspect?

J: Basically, it's incredibly accurate.

B: That is accurate. From transcripts.

E: That was it. I, I, that's, that's what it got, Bob. That's exactly. I didn't have to go through iterations. Just one question. And that's what it poured out. And it's surprisingly accurate.

B: Wow, that's that's cool.

E: So let's continue the debate, shall we? Because a recent study published in Science Advances reveals that carrion crows possess the ability to recognize geometric shapes, a cognitive skill previously attributed primarily to humans. Researchers tested how these crows perceive visual shapes, particularly quadrilaterals, right quadrilaterals such as squares, rectangles, and parallelograms, using methodologies similar to those employed in studies with humans and monkeys. The bird's work involved basically playing computer games that are designed to tease out how much they know about math. And for this study, the birds would look at a computer screen and they would see a group of 6 shapes. They would be rewarded with a tasty mealworm. Yum if they can Peck on the 1 shape that was different from the five others. This study was performed at the University of Tubingen. Sorry if I'm mispronouncing that in Germany. And Andreas Neider, who is a cognitive neurobiologist, was the the lead researcher for this particular project. He said, initially we presented some very obvious different figures, for instance 5 moons and 1 flower. So the crow would Peck on the flower shape and they got a snack. But after the birds understood the game got used to it, the researchers started showing them sets of shapes that included squares and parallelograms or irregular quadrilaterals. And the crows, for example, could see 5 perfect squares along with 1/4 sided figure that was just slightly off. And the researchers wanted to know whether or not, with these quadrilaterals, they could still continue to find the outlier, even though the outlier was looking perceptually similar to the other 5 shapes. The findings suggest that crows can spontaneously discern key geometric properties such as length, parallelism, perpendicularity, and symmetry, indicating an advanced level of visual processing. And then it even goes further because this, A similar test has been done with primates baboons apparently in a recent study did this as well. They could not achieve the same results that the crows achieved. Yep. So where does it come from and why crows? That's a good question. And that's going to be the next sort of the next phase they're going to start to go into that level of research as to figure out why this is, why this happens with crows in specifically, there really hasn't been a lot of work on this aspect of mathematics for species other than humans. So there's not really much to compare it to. But definitely, definitely, it suggests that they have the capacity to understand geometric regularities and and that that capacity is not unique to humans. Definitely challenging notions that cognitive abilities are solely a product of human culture and education. New understanding how crows and other animals perceive and interpret geometric information could provide deeper insights into the evolution of visual and cognitive processing in the animal Kingdom. Do you find those results surprising, Steve?

S: Not at all. I believe this is a much delayed point in my column on the bird versus monkey debate. What it what it brings up, though, is something that we've known for a while. But this is like more evidence of that is that first of all, crows are as evolved as humans, as chimpanzees, right As primates. Every creature alive today has as long an evolutionary history behind it as every other creature alive today. But also it's kind of hard to answer the question like which animal is quote UN quote smarter? Like they evolved a different intelligence than primates did, right? Than mammals did and specifically primates. Primates evolved the different intelligence than say dolphins.

C: Well, and even primates intelligence. Like are humans smarter than apes? Maybe yes. But if you drop me off in an aid habitat right now without tools, I don't think I would fare very well.

S: Right.

C: You know I didn't because I'm. Not. Evolved. I didn't adapt to that habitat.

S: Certainly humans have some extreme intellectual capabilities not shared by other animals. But yeah, but it makes perfect sense that, you know, like corvids, you know, the group that contains crows are do have a lot of cognitive ability. And it doesn't surprise me at all that there are some things that they could do better than primates. That's I don't find that surprising.

E: Haven't they been shown also to have tool using capabilities? So yeah, there is definitely, you know, we have to reanalyze the whole monkey versus bird. I know that's not entirely accurate, but that's what we're calling it, the monkey versus bird debate. And you're right, we continue to see more studies add up into the bird column on things. And you know, certainly as primates ourselves, we we have a certain bias perhaps, but time to shed those biases.

S: All right.

J: Thanks, Evan.

E: Thanks.

Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (57:02)

J: Jay, it's who's that noisy time? All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

Voice-over: Assess our social requirements and what we can do about them through our present machinery or other similar to it. Gordon stressed the need for a reconstruction of society as a basic cause.

J: So a big clue in there was that noise in the background.

S: Like the clattering, the clicking.

J: Yeah, that repetitive noise.

S: I'm assuming that's the recording device.

J: That is correct, Steve.

S: Which implies that it's very primitive.

J: You're also correct. Wow, you are like it's like you're a trans skeptic.

E: Wax cylinder.

J: So let's get into it. Listener named Andy Roche said it sound. It sounds a little like some dialogue out of Half Life too, with a motor from one of the games vehicles running in the background. It sounds like the name Gordon is mentioned. Gordon Freeman perhaps? Well, I am a huge fan of Half Life, too. So is Steve, and I'm ashamed to tell you that that is not from Half Life. But that was a cool reference you brought to us. Thank you. Cindy Kane. Shiro wrote in and said, This is the first time that I've ever made a guess. Is this a recording of L Ron Hubbard, the founder of the cult Scientology? It sounds similar to his nonsense. And I have to apologize to you, Cindy, because I didn't make it crystal clear what I was looking for in this noisy. I wasn't looking for who said it, but I've done this before where I have played, you know, people talking.

S: So you know that that's not L Ron Hubbard, because the guy's not drunk.

J: That's true, Steve, good point. So anyway, but thanks for writing in. It was my bad. I should have made it more clear. So next time I promise you it won't happen again. So I'm going to jump right to the winner because we had so many people guessed correctly because apparently this had this was taken from a popular YouTube channel. So Howard Blecher said first time guesser. A couple weeks ago I watched a YouTube vid of someone testing with the intent to repair a recorder that uses stainless wire. I've never seen or heard of such a device. That's what this sounds like to me. And then he says the YouTube said something about these recordings being used mainly by psychiatrists. So this is actually correct. Let me give you more details on what this is. This this noisy is playback from something called a wire recorder and a wire recorder machine uses a reel to reel system. You know if you ever seen like an old film projector, right? The, you know, rolls off 1 reel and collects on the other reel. The wire is made of steel. It's very thin. It looked at me, it looked to me about the thickness of a human hair. And the sound information is stored on the wire magnetically. So as the wire is moving past the right and playhead, it's, you know, it's, it's encoding it magnetically and then it's, you know, it's, as it plays back, they're able to translate that back into sound. The machine was originally developed in the late 1800s and they were widely used from the 1930s to the 1950s. I'm very surprised. That I had never heard this before, and then somebody else wrote in and gave even more information. So this recording is from the 1940s. It's played on a Pierce wire recorder, Model 55-B by Paul Carlson of the YouTube channel Mr. Carlson's Lab. And I did watch some of that and is very cool, very technical, but a lot of fun to watch. So that is a wire recorder. I'll play a little bit for you, listening in the background for the noise of the machine. Not bad quality for what they were using as a medium, yeah.

S: It's totally understandable.

J: Yeah, I have a a new noisy for you guys. This was sent in by a listener named Vladimir Bjorn as Gerson. That's I got that name damn close, I promise you. And here it is. Pretty strange and eerie sounding. If you think you know what this week's noisy is, you can e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. And don't forget, if you heard something cool this week, you can also send that to me at W 10 WTN at theskepticsguide.org. Steve, quick announcements here.

US#03: Yeah.

J: You, you could give our show a rating on whatever podcast player you're using, or you can use iTunes to give us a rating and helps new people find the show. We have a huge conference coming up in less than a month. As you hear this, it's called Nauticon 2025. We have a Beatles theme this year for the conference. We will be having lots of different things going on, like a, a live boomer versus Zoomer, which is a, which is a game that we came up with with live contestants. It's a ton of fun. We will also be doing a live sing along hosted by George Rob. Last year the theme was the 80s. This year, of course, it's going to be The Beatles. It's going to be a ton of fun. If you want to socialize, if you want to have a good time, if you want to meet new people and make some friends, then go to notaconcon.com For more information. Tickets are still available.

S: And Jay, we should mention that we have new events available for Nauticon because we sold out, you know, on a lot of the special stuff, the VIP and the board game with a lot of people asking for stuff. We added two separate ticketed events, one hour private SGU recordings on Friday over the lunch period and Saturday over the lunch period. These are separate one hour ticketed events, so check that out. You can. Those are now active on the website.

J: Guys, we are coming to Kansas in September of this year. This is happening in mid-september. You can go to theskepticsguide.org and on the homepage we have buttons there for the extravaganza that we'll be doing in Kansas and also for an SGU private show which we will also be doing in Kansas. We should be, I think, about 40 minutes outside of Kansas City in a town called Lawrence, which I hear is a really, really fun town. It's a college town. So if you're interested, please join us. Go check out our website.

S: Thank you, Jay.

Emails (1:03:26)

S: Couple emails, see if we can get to both of them. The first one comes from Nathan who writes been a fan of the show for a number of years and now have enjoyed learning and engaging in the community and the ideas discussed each week. I was hoping to ask your opinions on how skepticism can inform the way we view certain industries and institutions when individuals can cause conflict within core ideologies. The example I'm thinking of is how to view Tesla in the current political landscape. For background, I'm in the market for a new car to replace one that's recently hit end of life, and I was hoping to get some something electric. This is driven both by the impressive technology and the reduced emissions and costs, especially attractive in my state where our power is almost entirely hydro. The Tesla Model 3 is in my price range and is by all accounts a fantastic car with sound engineering behind it. I come unstuck through grappling with what I believe Eve is a logical environmental financial choice. The crinkle though is the ties to Musk, who I would have picked as my skeptical Jackass of the year. This goes back to my original subject matter of whether we can separate art from the artist in the technological and political landscapes for consideration. How much of current Tesla is driven by Elon and how much does that matter if the product at the end is still efficient, safe, reliable and just well designed? How should we as skeptics or individuals be tackling these decisions? And should this this weigh in strongly to the final decision? Interested in your thoughts. So what do you guys think? Is it reasonable to boycott Tesla? I think we could say categorically, right, that any kind of violence or vandalism is is not justified and shouldn't be done. And we condemn that, right? But yeah, but just in case there's any confusion about that, but certainly your your purchasing decision is a type of political speech.

E: 100%.

S: And absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

C: And not just monetarily. I mean, it is monetarily because you're monetarily supporting something, but it's also you have to accept the fact that if you drive around in this car, you're making a statement.

S: Yeah, I mean, I think partly, but I well, the problem there is a lot of people like me bought their Tesla's already years ago. You know that's.

C: Why they put the stickers on the back?

S: I know you have to understand, but that's kind of silly flavor. I sticker so All right, so this is my personal take on. So first of all, I get the notion of separating the art from the artist and you have to do that to some degree. I don't care about the political opinions or whatever of every.

E: Everyone driving the Volkswagen, everyone driving an Audi. What are you gonna do, Say this was Hitler's idea or something? I mean, come on, you gotta.

S: Set up or even just like you have an actor or a musician or whatever who has questionable behavior or beliefs or whatever you can't get. You can get lost in the weeds there.

C: Yeah, but don't say you can't because some I think you. Can't. I'm saying it's it's.

S: It becomes silly at some point in my opinion, but sure.

C: But but, but, but that line is different for everybody. I agree. And just because it can become silly, like I agree, you know?

S: I what I said to him is like, I don't think the separating art from the artist applies here. And again, you can choose to do that, but it's a choice and so.

C: This isn't just art, it's.

S: AI know this is this is this is a. Consumer good. This is a big purchase, not just like buying a loaf of bread. This is a 35,000. Whatever 40,000 even more, more purchase. It's big and it is absolutely speech, you know, and it can it is one of the few levers we have to affect the world, you know, at the current time. And So what what I wrote back to him was I don't think that you can hide behind the notion of separating art from the artist here because you are making a statement, you are making a political decision. Unfortunately not. We didn't do that. He did it. He tied his brand and his empire to a very, in my opinion, extreme political position, and that made purchasing his car political. He did that.

C: And it's not just what the what it represents either. It's it's also he is actively benefiting financially.

S: Hugely.

C: Deeply from from his relationship to our government.

S: You hit, I said.

C: Listen. Shane.

S: No shame, but you'd have to make that whatever decision you think is best for you. And, you know, with your eyes open, like don't. I just wouldn't hide behind this notion of, well, you separate, get the art from the art. It's like, well, you choose to do that when you think it's not that important, but you can't really, I think in this case you, you are making a decision and you may still decide to get the Tesla because you think that the, the benefits outweigh the downside politically, whatever, that's a personal choice you are making. Don't hide from it. I, I said for me personally, I don't know that I could do it. I'm in the I'm in the market for an EV right now and I love my Tesla that we bought whatever it was 5-6 years ago, but I would have a hard time doing it now because it's just given what what he has done and what he represents.

B: Couldn't, would not do it.

S: But it's a person. But it's a personal decision. I get that. The good news is, though, there's lots of other options out there. There's lots of very good EVs out there. So it's not exactly, you know, it's the only game in town.

B: China's got a good one.

S: Or even just South Korea. I mean, there's a lot there's you know, the Kia electric is very good. There's other choices. So you're not, you know, six years ago or longer, it was, it was tougher. Tesla really did stand out, you know, in the industry significantly, especially because of the recharging infrastructure. But now it's not as true anymore, especially since, you know, they're essentially allowing other companies to use the Tesla chargers with adapters, you know, so it makes it more, I think, feasible to have another EV. It's an interesting question. It's a horrible question, you know, decision dilemma that is being foisted upon us. But I don't think we can hide from it as the bottom line.

J: I mean, Steve, I agree. It's one of those things. I mean, this is so unbelievably politically charged. I mean, if you are a conservative and you know, you're you're reading the different news and have a different perception on everything and it's a no brainer. I mean, the a lot of the Tesla vehicles, you know, reading reviews on them, other than the cyber truck, they're, they're good cars, great.

S: Cars, it's just sucks that they're so great. I wish, I honestly, I just wish that the the board of Tesla would just fire him as CEO. He right now he's a drag. He's a drag on the company.

J: Now, personally, I wouldn't get one, largely because I would be afraid that it would get vandalized.

S: Yeah, but that shouldn't be the reason. That's I think it's so unfortunate because there's a legitimate banned protest that you can do here, and because a small, tiny, small subset of people are choosing to do vandalism and violence, it taints politically the whole thing, or at least it becomes a convenient talking point.

C: Yeah, that, I mean. Dismissively on the other side. Not legitimate, but. Yeah, there. There's always been fun. There's always been vandalism. There's always going to be the fringe.

S: I know, I know, but it just sucks. I just wish people would.

C: Would realize it does, I agree, but like we we we can't let that talking point take over the narrative I.

S: Agree that we have to point to that most people are protesting peacefully and then there's a couple of vandals that come out at night. That's what's happening. But but they try to make it seem like that's the whole thing. This is. Great.

C: Yeah, that was massively the rhetoric during all the Black Lives Matter protests when when people were like, it's terrorism and these people are rioting in the streets like, Oh my God, I'll propaganda. Yeah, exactly.

S: All right, let's go on to the next one really quick. This one is about the moon rotating and this is I hadn't. This is another like kind of cranky e-mail e-mail I had.

C: I.

S: Had a number of backs and forths with this person. I'll just read you his initial e-mail.

E: Is he a flat mooner?

S: No, no, it's weird. It's so weird. I just couldn't wrap my head or what his problem was. So he says the moon does not rotate on its axis, which is kind of a weird belief to hold on to. He said. Rotation in orbit, an object moving in a 360° orbit, well by the end of that orbit have returned to its original position relative to the body it's orbiting. In that sense, it over its overall orientation has rotated 360° relative to an external viewpoint rotation on its axis. This requires a change in which part of the object leads its motion. A tightly locked body, by definition, maintains the same face forward the object it orbits. Therefore, the same part of the object consistently leads its motion in that relationship. The one to one orbital period to rotational period of of tidy lock moons like our moon and 20 plus others is a consequence of their orbit and the gravitational forces involved. It results in a consistent face towards the primary body according to the definition of rotation on its axis. This consistent facing means that these tidy lock moons are not rotating on their axis in the sense that different parts of them are taking the lead in their motion. The rotation that completes one cycle per orbit is a rotation of the orientation in space due to their orbital movement, not a spin around an internal axis that changes which part leads the way. He had a lot of other sort of things. He has this teddy bear experiment where you hold the teddy bear in front of you and you spin around and the teddy bear is always facing you, therefore it's not rotating. So I tried to figure out, all right, obviously this is ridiculous, right? I mean, the moon rotates on its axis, but it's always interesting to try to deconstruct it and figure out where's his major malfunction, What mental mistake is he making? And.

C: He's he's holding a teddy bear and he turns around in a big circle and the teddy bear's not rotating. Yes, it is rotating.

S: Of course it is. So that's like his big experiment. It's like the teddy bear hypothesis, like he really focuses on it so.

C: Put a laser on the teddy bear's forehead and he'll paint a circle around the room.

S: But that is an external thing that doesn't count, apparently so, right, I said, yeah, what about the moon in relation to the sun? It clearly is your things. Well, he said that doesn't matter. It's only matters because the it's local to the Earth. So clearly the problem here is one of frame of reference, right? He is choosing a rather bizarre frame of reference in order to make his point. And in fact he's choosing a non inertial frame, which is always a bad frame of reference to choose. If you choose an inertial frame, meaning one in is, you know where there's there's no other local movement, you know what I mean? Like if you're.

E: A point in space.

S: Yeah, right. Exactly like a point in space or, you know, for our solar system, you could use the sun. That's a good sort of non inertial frame within the context of our solar system and it's absolutely rotating. Now, of course there's an objective way according to physics to tell how did we figure out or one of the what's 1 of the ways in which we prove the the Earth is rotating on its axis to cause pendulum? Yeah, the pendulum it it turn, it rotates once every 24 hours as the as the Earth spins. So you could do that on the moon. We, I don't think we've ever done it.

E: But interesting, let's do.

S: That, but we could take a month, you know, 28 days, you know, to go around. But yeah, I don't think anyone's constructed such a pendulum on the moon. But that'd be interesting to do that. But the question is, would it rotate around? And the answer is definitely yes, it would. And so by definition, objectively, it is rotating. And you can't just choose some bizarre frame of reference to argue that it isn't. But he's just so mentally locked in this, I couldn't break him out of it. Anyway. Very interesting.

E: He was staring into the teddy bear. Yeah. Too much I. Guess as he spins around.

S: But the teddy bear is not moving, but the teddy bear. But again, he just thinks that like everyone else is wrong. Again, it always comes down to too like the people who are acting like cranks is. There's always that element of I'm right and everyone else is wrong. You know, is there's a little bit of hubris involved.

E: Yeah, it is a.

S: Flat and what you should be doing is he should be trying to figure out why. Am I wrong?

E: Break it, right? Break it.

S: Not let me convince you that I'm right, that I've sort of reinvented physics or I've figured this thing out that hundreds of years of astronomers haven't figured out. But explain to me why I'm wrong. What, what mental error am I making? That's the approach I always assume. That's what they're asking anyway, and then that's how I answer it.

E: I'm explaining. Shame in asking people to help you with that, you know, especially people who have a, you know, a more robust understanding of these kinds of things.

C: And that's also fundamental to the scientific process, I think, a thing. How do I break it? Right.

S: That's how I remember the guys who figured who discovered that faster than light neutrinos, you know, they're they're, they were like guys. How? What mistake? What are we making? What? Tell us how we're wrong?

E: Right, you have to assume. You're wrong. See. That plug over there.

S: Yeah, that cable over there, I think you should double check.

E: That's a healthy, healthy way of approaching.

S: It yeah, I know I end I end up spending a lot of time on like my response TikTok videos like built into everyone is like, you know, this would this could be solved with just a tiny little, a little itty bitty bit of humility on your part would, would fix this issue that you're having of thinking that you figured something out that the world got wrong. All right, anyway, let's go on with science or fiction.

Science or Fiction (1:16:34)

Theme: Extinct genomes Item #1: The dodo, famous extinct bird of the Mauritius island. Item #2: The bluebuck, a blue antelope, and the first large African mammal to go extinct in modern times. Item #3: The giant moa (both north island and south island Dinornis species) of New Zealand.

Answer	Item
Fiction	The giant moa (both north island and south island Dinornis species) of New Zealand.
Science	The dodo, famous extinct bird of the Mauritius island.
Science	The bluebuck, a blue antelope, and the first large African mammal to go extinct in modern times.

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Evan	The giant moa (both north island and south island Dinornis species) of New Zealand.
Bob	The giant moa (both north island and south island Dinornis species) of New Zealand.
Cara	Unknown science or fiction item
Jay	Unknown science or fiction item

E: It's time for science or fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 real and one fake. Except this week I have facts and there are four of them. Now these all have the theme. The theme is extinct genomes. OK. And the, the preface to all of them are we have fully sequenced nuclear genomes from the following extinct animals, right. So I'm going to list you 4 animals, three of which we have sequenced the the nuclear genomes for and one we do not. You have to tell me which one is not true. OK, got it. All right, here we go. Item number one, the dodo, famous extinct bird of the Mauritius island 2. The blue buck, a blue antelope and the first large African mammal to go extinct in modern times. Item number three, the giant MOA, both North Island and South Island Dinornus species of New Zealand, and item number 4, Denisovans, a close relative of humans and Neanderthals. Evan, to celebrate tax season being over, you get to go first.

E: This is crazy, Steve. I've heard of dodos. I've heard of the giant MOA. I have definitely heard of Denisovans. A blue block. I've never heard of that. So I'm already I'm kind of biased in my own head, like thinking, OK, well, didn't hear a blue book. So maybe that's the one That's the fiction. At the same time, my gosh, the the, the, the genome sequence for the Denisovans. My that seems, that seems whoa, really the whole thing is that that seems extreme. Like wouldn't that be difficult? Isn't that enormous? So I'm having multiple issues here with this. It ultimately just comes down to a guess though. Why, which one? Why? You know, I want to say Denisovans as the fiction because I, I think that's would seem to be the obvious one of these 4. But then next, you know, come back to kind of the game itself and it's like, OK, that's the one you definitely want me to pick. And then my mind goes back to Blue Buck, because I don't, I've never heard of the Blue Buck, a blue antelope that's made-up something out of Willy Wonka or something. So I don't know. I'll say the giant Moa for no particular reason. Steven is strictly a guess. This is really puzzling me.

B: OK, Bob, I. Think maybe the Denisovans are meant to be like Oh no, can't be that, but they didn't didn't go extinct that long ago. Something about the moa. I think that I don't know when they went extinct, but I think it was quite, you know, longer than you would think. So I'm.

E: I'm not huge.

B: Yeah, I'm not.

E: Seeing pictures of those right the the. Drawings.

B: Oh yeah, and I'm not sure about any of these, but I'll I'm going to go with the mower.

E: OK, Tara.

C: I just don't agree with the guys. I don't think I barely.

E: Agree with myself.

C: You probably you probably can't tell us this this late, but the Denise events went extinct like 10s of thousands maybe maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago. These other things went extinct like a few 100 years ago, right? Like we.

S: Probably had I thought the mowers were like I said. Yeah, this is something that care I think has to handle on around.

C: Yeah, maybe. But like I think that these things did not go extinct. They were modern. They were contemporary. I know Denisovitz were also contemporaneous with modern humans, but we're talking ancient modern humans. I think that these things were around during like, like big civilizations. So it just feels like we probably have museum specimens of these other three organisms that we could extract whole DNA from, whereas the Denisovan DNA is going to be from like fossils. And that that's why it just seems less likely. Granted, there's probably more of a push like because humans are egocentric and we would love to, we would love to have a full sequence of a hominid species, but I think that's way more work. And so maybe we did it and maybe we just haven't gotten around to one of the other ones. But in terms of what's most feasible, I think the Denise Evans would be the least feasible to sequence. So I've got to say, that's the fiction.

J: I happen to. Agree and Jay. Yeah, I agree with Cara. I mean, I think of all of these, you know, I've never heard of the Blue Buck before either. I mean, I would think because I've heard the term Denisovans before and I have a very, very vague feeling about how old it is. And I think it's a they're very, very, they existed a long time ago. So I'm just going to go with Cara on that.

S: Good. So we have a nice even split. So let's start with the first one, the dodos that you guys all agree upon this the dodo, famous extinct bird of the Mauritius island. Do we have the fully sequenced nuclear genome of this creature? So just for some details, why do I say qualified as nuclear genome that's obviously like the DNA in the nucleus of the cell as opposed to what's the other option?

C: Mitochondrial.

S: Mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA, Yeah.

C: But with mitochondrial DNA you wouldn't be able to reconstruct an Organism.

S: No, but it's really good for for figuring out branch evolutionary relationships.

C: Yeah, it's great for evolution, it's great for forensics, it's great for all those things like understand so.

S: That's why sometimes we do that sometimes like there are lots of creatures where we we've sequenced the mitochondrial DNA specifically so that we could tell it's evolutionary relationships. It's also you could tell a lot about it's how how much genetic diversity there is in the population, for example. So it's very useful, but not for, yeah. Nuclear DNA, we're talking about like de extinction. We're talking about like we need a fully sequenced genome to be able to make this thing again. All right, so this one, the dodo is science. We have completely sequenced. Now I say fully sequenced, that means some some creatures we have for example, a we have a partial like genome of a lot of creatures, but it has to get to a certain, you know, saying like fully sequenced doesn't mean that we know 100% about it. It just means that they have the whole genome. But there still may be some. It's like the question is how many errors are there? It doesn't mean error free. Let me just put it that way. Saying that we have fully sequenced to the, you know, doesn't mean that it's highly detailed and error free. So there's different quality, different resolution, but you still count as being fully sequenced if you basically have the full genome. Does that make sense?

C: But this was that same company who did the Dire Wolf.

S: Right, that this is the same company, this is the the colossal Biosciences. They did that all right. You guys also agree on the blue buck, a blue antelope and the first large African mammal to go extinct in modern times. You guys all think this one is science and this one is science. This is also science.

C: Very cool.

S: OK, yeah, I I've been, I've known about the Blue Book for a long time, just 'cause I'm interested in extinct large mammal fauna and stuff like that. And it's the some of the artists drawings of it. And also we have some skins, I think still intact from it. Beautiful, beautiful antelope, these gorgeous curved horns. This, you know, blue tinted coat, kind of a large, a large antelope. And it was haunted for its for, for its coat, you know, to extinction. Oh, what about 200 years ago? Yeah. So it's been exciting for about 200 years.

B: But we have coats. We have the coats left.

S: Yeah. That's the thing we do. So that's where we got the DNA from WE.

E: Got the maintenance. Did it maintain its glue for all that time?

S: So we had they, they got DNA from 25 different fossils. And so that was, you know, that that improves the ability to, to get sequencing, although there was one that was really high quality that that is most of the sequencing was done from this one well preserved, preserved genome. So we, we got lucky with this one fossil. Without that one, like we wouldn't have been able to do it basically from what I understand. So yeah, so that's that's nice. So that and that's a absolutely I think should be on the short list for the extinction if we're going to do that, because first of all, it's not a predator or anything. It's an antelope. It's ecosystem is there, you know, just have to we can just reintroduce it just another antelope and it's gorgeous. So and and it went extinct because of people, right. So that's what kind of my criteria for why you should be on the short list. So Dodo blue buck definitely should bring them back. OK, I guess we'll keep going in order. The giant MOA, both North Island and South Island Dynorna species of New Zealand. Evan you kind of were bouncing back and forth between Blue Buck and Denisovans, and you just suddenly jumped over to the giant MOA Yes for no reason.

E: Right.

S: We saw some some giant MOA skeletons when we were in New Zealand. It went extinct relatively rapidly between 1380 and 1440, so it has to be at least about 506. 100 years old, not that long I.

B: Thought they were a lot older. OK.

S: No, no, yeah, 5 to 600 years old, so this one and it's so Evan and Jay, but and.

C: Cara that. Was Evan anyone?

S: No, no, no. Didn't Bob? Didn't you? Say that. Yes, he's pulling your leg. Yeah, so evident, Bob said. The giant moa, and again, it has to For this to be true, we need to have both of both species in the genus Dinornis, both the North Island giant moa and the South Island. That's right, double your chance here. And this one is the fiction.

E: Wow. We do. Nice.

S: Yeah, I knew it. Dude, I did doubt it for a second. We do not have the complete genome of either of them, of either the North Island or the South Island. Now we do have the complete genome of the Little Bush Mower, which is a different genus, Anomalopteryx.

B: Doesn't count.

S: It doesn't count. That's why I threw in the. I threw in the genus just to be 100% because there is another MOA that we do have the genome for. It's a, but it's a different genus. Anomalopteris. Did it form?

B: Anomalopteris. Yeah, it's. Anomaly.

S: It's a little Bush MOA. Apparently it was about the size of a Turkey. So not the big boys, you know, like the not the 12 foot dinoidus. Yeah, but we do have the the complete genome for that guy, but not the other two. So that is the fiction. So that means that we do have a complete sequenced nuclear genome of the Denisovans.

E: How? How?

S: We also have it for the Neanderthals. Now, the reason why I chose Denisovans over Neanderthals is because I thought everybody knew that we have completely sequenced the Neanderthal. And I thought you might think, oh, but I don't know if they did the Denisovans. But we have. Yeah. And we have. We had a fossil specimen that that yielded up that DNA sample sufficient to do a high pretty good resolution sequencing of the Denisovans. And we were able, we have been able to as a result do a pretty genome wide comparison between Neanderthals, humans and Denisovans. And, and that was how they were able to determine that the genetic diversity within the Denisovans lies outside of the range of the genetic diversity within the Neanderthals. And it is a different species by those criteria. So that's how we know that because they were able to sequence the genome.

B: Wow. Oh, cool, cool.

S: Yeah.

B: I mean they went extinct what only like what, 50,000 years ago so. That's what I thought.

S: 30 Thousand 30,000.

B: Yeah, well, I think more, but. No 30, I'm telling you I'm not guessing.

S: It's 30,000. I just looked it up.

B: So yeah, so did I.

E: Between 30 and 50,000 years.

S: Yeah, this source says around 50,000 years ago. You're right.

B: I'm seeing here on Wikipedia 25,000 years who well.

S: OK, yeah, there's a race then. This one says 40,000.

B: Yeah, they're all over. Yeah.

S: So, well, let's say 30 to 50,000 years ago was when they were there. I'll have to do a deeper dive to see like if there's if there's more tighter consensus there. But yeah, around there. And again, I think the Neanderthal was talking like 35,000 is the number I have in my head for when they went extinct. It's around that same time.

B: Still seems kind of impressive. That's. That's very impressive. That's like, yeah, they did a lot of work to do that.

S: Yeah, thousands of years is impressive. They must have had a lot of specimens. Now, that doesn't mean that the DNA is of sufficient quality that you could use it to make a clone, right?

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:30:02)

"The ease with which we believe things that flatter us or confirm our prejudices should always be suspect."  – — Christopher Hitchens, (description of author)

S: That takes really high quality DNA and if it's too degraded, even if we could say we have a complete genome, quote UN quote complete, there might be too many, too many errors and whatever for it to to function As for cloning purposes. But it could be used for the genetic engineering purposes, although I don't think anyone's going to do that. I mean, that's, you know, no one's going to make a, you know, try to de extinct Neanderthals or Denisovans or Homo erectus like that. That would be crazy unethical I think.

B: No, you're you're nuts. Cool, would that be?

S: I mean, come on, I just, I have a hard time seeing like ethical approval for that. That doesn't mean that it doesn't mean it won't happen. It won't happen sometime in the future when the technology becomes, you know, proliferates and everybody.

E: Press this button.

S: Yeah, really. Basically. But but I suspect they'll be laws against that sort of thing.

E: Made to be obeyed at all time. Obeyed. Yes. Follow.

S: Yes, please obey the. Laws and debated. All right, well, good job Evan.

B: Bob.

S: Bob.

J: Yeah.

B: Yeah, Scott got a little lucky. Surprise.

J: Nice work, boys. Karen and I, we're not angry. We're not going to hold a grudge. We know you cheated. Yeah.

B: Right.

C: We know you threw a dart at a dart board for that one.

J: Evan's like I don't know anything number.

C: Two No.

J: No, no.

E: Saturn was rising in Taurus. So the luck, the luck of it was emanated down to me, Sir.

C: Bob literally tried to do a a a confused Steve at the less.

E: Yes, the old shell game kind of thing. Which where's the P? OK, move it around it. Was an ears and I do the old Jedi.

B: Don't matter, still gotta. Win I have.

E: I have a little bit of sad news before I give the quote. Steve No.

B: Who died?

E: We have. We have to announce the passing of Wink Martindale.

S: Yeah, I saw that.

E: Wait a second, I know you you you cite him more than anyone else on the SGU.

B: Yeah, I didn't know. Actually, I didn't even know he was still alive so.

S: I'll be honest with you. How old was he?

E: 91.

S: 91 Good for him.

E: Yeah. Yeah.

S: So Wink Martindale, just for context, is and I I think we've done this on the show a number of times. Whenever someone asks you to guess a name, there's a few like just funny sounding names, you know, like or like really non sequitur, whimsical sounding names that we throw out there and wink Joey bag of Donuts, Joey bag of Donuts. Wink Martindale is one of them. This is one of our go to fake guesses when people say right, you know, asking for a name because yeah, Wink Martindale. I mean, you know, it's a great name. It's just a great name. It is.

E: It is so TV game show. I know, absolutely.

C: And he was 91.

E: 91.

C: Wow, I can't believe I just Googled it because I saw a quote. I'm sorry, this is going to feel a little bit like a non sequitur, But I saw a quote from David Attenborough because he's doing a new show and he said something like, in my nearly 100 years on this earth. And I was like, wait, what? And I just Googled it and David Attenborough is 98.

S: Yeah, wow. Oh yeah, absolutely.

C: And still working regularly.

S: For their entire childhood, my daughters didn't know that Wink Martindale was, is a real person. Yeah.

E: It's a novella thing, right?

C: It's true. It's because like, I guess he was in his prime so long ago. Yeah, we don't. In the 70s. Now, yeah, yeah, yeah.

E: It's definitely a 70s throwback. So our love and respect for the entire Martindale family. All right, the quote this week. The ease with which we believe things that flatter us or confirm our prejudices should always be suspect. The wise words of Christopher Hitchens. Yo man.

S: Yeah, very pithy love.

E: It definite. Yep. Oh yeah, always pithy and little gems from him are. Wonderful.

S: Be most suspicious of beliefs that either flatter you or confirm your what you want to believe absolutely.

B: Yes, enjoy them for a few moments, but then. Right, enjoy the dopamine release, but then get to work.

S: You know, again, we all know people who like, just jump on anything that supports what they want to believe. Like, that's it. That's an ironclad fact.

B: You know, yeah, it's in their, if it's in their worldview. Yeah, we know some people like Oh yeah, hook, line and sinker.

S: But everyone does it to some degree. But there are people at one end of the spectrum. Your goal should be to be at the other end of the spectrum to be like, I don't want to say something, especially if it's like is right in my sweet spot and support something. I want to be true. You know, it's like I better before I start throwing this out there, I better carefully that right, Especially if you're going to throw it out there. Yeah, right, right. Oh, absolutely. You hate to like, include things in your list of facts that you think you know that are not true, you know, but good, good life lesson and very, very pithily.

B: Yeah, but I, I hate when I find the opposite, when I find something that I've been saying, telling people like a cool fact. Then I found out that it's bullshit and like, Oh my God, who did I tell over the past 20 years, this awesome fact? I got to like find them and tell them, hey, wait a second, that was. Wrong.

S: That's like you have herpes and like who did I have sex with in the last oh?

B: My gosh, no, you don't need to make that connection.

S: Just reminded me of that. You know, you need to like reconstruct all of your connections. All right. Well, thank you all for joining me this week.

B: Thank you.

S: Got it, brother. Before we sign off, the SGU would like to thank the following patrons for their generous support of the SGU Parish Lee, Casey, Justin Howard, Jonathan, Silly, Tuna, Frizzo, Mary, Jake, David, Michael, Kevin, Steve, Jeffrey, Suzanne, Diane, Ben, Tina, Cyanidis, Strong, AP, David, Jim, Dan, Douglas, Albert, Simon, Eli, Whitney, Wesley, Eric, Adrian, Wayne, Heather, Franklin, Gosplan, Joe, Steve, Marcel, Joe, Truth, Morgan, Jason, George, Jeremy, Ken, DJ, Stefan, Wolf, Olivia, Kevin, Oak, Werner, Jeff, Charlie, Tyler, and Mark. And until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.